Donald Trump voters: We like the president’s lies

On the whole, Trump has never been viewed more negatively on matters of truth. A Quinnipiac University poll this week found that 60 per cent of Americans think he is dishonest, a new high. Time ran a cover story on Trump with the headline “Is truth dead?” The Wall Street Journal editorial board, long Trump-friendly, accused him of damaging his presidency with a “seemingly endless stream of exaggerations, evidence-free accusations, implausible denials and other falsehoods.”

Yet Trump has also managed a remarkable feat: maintaining a reputation among millions of Americans as a man of rare honesty at the same time as he launches an unprecedented daily barrage of Oval Office lies.

[ . . . ]

Charlie Sykes, the Trump critic and former conservative talk radio host in Wisconsin, says there is an “alternative reality bubble” within the right, created in part by conservative media. Trump, he said, is both developing and exploiting this “post-truth environment,” elevating once-fringe conspiracy theorists and propagandists who will then amplify his lies.

Well worth going over and reading the entire article – explains it very well with quotes from people expressing why they believe Trump even though they know he is lying.

**

These articles from 2010 and 2014 are examples of the right wing war on facts that has been ongoing for decades. An alternative fact bubble has not only been created but maintained that now alters what many Americans perceive as the facts about various subjects including science, history, the value of education and academics, economics, among many others.

An idea that has been promoted as well, is that facts are a matter of opinion and that one’s opinion changes what the facts are. In application, this means we have, in America, radio stations, right-wing controlled cable news / entertainment shows that have been telling Americans that facts are not only open to interpretation as to their value and meaning, but also that the facts themselves are based in opinion or essentially no more than an opinion and consequently, not facts at all.

Obviously, whether a person decides by opinion that rain is occurring – rain is nonetheless a fact and without some protection from it and good judgment based on that fact, that rain will continue as a fact with whatever dangers it represents. The only real thing that will happen considering rain that is occurring to be only an opinion, is for the person believing that to put themselves in unnecessary and predictable difficulties of getting wet, driving too fast for conditions and maybe harming their life and health or that of others – as a result.

In the two articles below, there are indications of this thrust to change facts, alter facts that are available concerning subject matter and erase the substantive value of facts as a critical foundation of reasoning and judgment. In climate science, the removal of the subject from text books, policy, agencies, websites, government research – does not change the facts about its impacts and dangers. It only makes our country less capable of mounting successful efforts to either positively influence those changes or to mitigate damages and harms that will occur as a result.

In economics and macro-economics, the same is true when the facts are deleted, altered, dismissed, discredited or denied. And, facts in every other arena and focus tend to the same result when treated as mere opinion rather than substance of reality.

cricketdiane, 03-26-2017

Texas Conservatives Win Curriculum Change

Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer from Richmond who is a strict constitutionalist and thinks the nation was founded on Christian beliefs, managed to cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone. (Jefferson is not well liked among conservatives on the board because he coined the term “separation between church and state.”)

“The Enlightenment was not the only philosophy on which these revolutions were based,” Ms. Dunbar said.

[ . . . ]

Mavis B. Knight, a Democrat from Dallas, introduced an amendment requiring that students study the reasons “the founding fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring the government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion above all others.”

Rewriting history? Texas tackles textbook debate

The Board of Education will approve new history textbooks for the state’s 5-plus million public school students in November. But it heard hours of complaints about 104 proposed books during a sometimes heated public hearing.

[ . . . ]

Debates over academic curriculum and textbooks have for years thrust Texas’ Board of Education into the national spotlight, sparking battles over issues such as how to teach climate change and natural selection. Many publishers sell books created for Texas to school districts in other states.

In 2010, while approving the history curriculum standards that this year’s round of new books are supposed to follow, conservatives on the board required that students evaluate whether the United Nations undermines U.S. sovereignty and study the Congressional GOP’s 1994 Contract with America.

Kathleen Wellman, a history professor at Southern Methodist University, said many books give Moses – the biblical Hebrew leader who received the Ten Commandments from God – credit for influencing the U.S. Constitution, so much so that Texas students might believe “Moses was the first American.”

“Moses shows up everywhere doing everything,” Wellman said.

[ . . . ]

A group of experts convened by the left-leaning advocacy group Texas Freedom Network has objected to some proposed books’ overemphasizing the influence of the Ten Commandments and other Christian tenants on the American Revolution.

“There are more than 100 pages of errors,” said Kathy Miller, Freedom Network’s president. Board member David Bradley, a Beaumont Republican, noted that some of the academics doing reviews for Miller’s group were paid . . .

The March for Science champions robustly funded and publicly communicated science as a pillar of human freedom and prosperity. March with us on April 22, 2017.

Go see this – a wonderful innovation in removing oil spills effectively that needs to be commercialized and brought into the marketplace for use in oil and gas companies’ required cleanup plans. – cricketdiane

Refiners have also long complained that environmental regulations have stymied attempts to build new refineries and that they have borne the brunt of costly rules requiring them to blend biofuels into their gasoline.

Still, some energy analysts and regulation experts point out that the biggest drivers for these industries, too, tend to be supply and demand — not regulation.

The abundance of cheap natural gas is seen as the biggest obstacle to reviving coal country, since both fuels compete for space in the furnaces of U.S. power plants. For refiners, the key driver for profitability is the differential between the price of their raw material, crude oil, and the fuels they make with it.

“Supply and demand are the fundamental forces driving markets,” said Coglianese, the University of Pennsylvania law professor. “Regulation is relatively trivial.”

Trump’s ‘energy independence’ order expected to be pushed back another week

The order is expected to end a de facto ban on building new coal power plants in the country, a moratorium on coal mining and the end of far-reaching climate regulations on states.

According to a draft copy of the “Energy Independence” executive order reviewed by the Washington Examiner, the first target on the menu will be the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan and New Source standard for power plants.

The draft order states that the power plan would cost $39 billion a year, based on a previous industry-funded study by NERA Consulting that the draft order cites to justify ending the Obama administration’s version of the plan,

[ . . . ]

The order also looks to rein in the New Source power plant standard, which the coal industry refers to as EPA’s de facto ban on building new coal plants. The regulation requires that all new coal plants be outfitted with expensive carbon capture technology, which the industry argues is cost prohibitive and makes building new coal plants next to impossible.

But since both climate rules are being reviewed in federal court, the Trump order also directs the attorney general to request all courts reviewing the climate rules to hold the cases in abeyance, or remand them back to EPA while the administration reviews them.

In addition, the order directs the Interior Department to lift its moratorium on issuing new coal leases to open up mining again.

It also calls for an interagency working group to “reconsider” the Social Cost of Carbon, which is the metric the Obama administration used to justify the cost of its regulations, while directing the White House Council on Environmental Quality to rescind an agency-wide directive by the Obama administration to include climate change in all environmental reviews of projects.

WHITE HOUSE

The Clean Power Plan is gone — and there’s no ‘replace’

The White House intends to unravel the Clean Power Plan without providing a replacement, according to a source briefed on the issue.

An executive order expected to be released next week also instructs the Justice Department to effectively withdraw its legal defense of the climate rule in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The move aligns the White House with about two dozen Republican state attorneys general who are challenging the way the rule restricts greenhouse gas emissions at power plants.

The result, if successful, would mean the case is “frozen in place,” the source said, preventing the D.C. Circuit, which has six judges appointed by Democrats and four by Republicans, from issuing an opinion this spring . . .

[ . . .]

That raises questions about whether EPA would fail to satisfy legal requirements to regulate carbon dioxide and other climate pollutants.

The agency in 2009, responding to the Supreme Court, determined that greenhouse gases endanger human health. That requires EPA to regulate emissions, and the agency did that by promulgating the Clean Power Plan.

“I think, as a matter of law, that carbon is a pollutant has been settled,” said Christine Todd Whitman, who served as EPA administrator under President George W. Bush. “EPA has to act once you have that kind of a finding.”

[ . . . ]

The administration anticipates that. The executive order instructs EPA to “revise or rescind” the Clean Power Plan, wording that’s meant to comply with the Administrative Procedure Act by letting EPA, not the White House, determine the fate of the rule.

The agency will then go through the long rulemaking process. But rather than promulgating a new rule, it will terminate an existing one. It will post notice and take comments and then put out a proposed rule. After accepting more comment, the action will be finalized. Then the administration is “off to the races in court,” the source said.

Solve for ‘X’: Trump’s war on facts extends to undermining key federal statistics

How do you run an economy without statistics? Poorly, that’s how. But that’s what we’re in for if we muzzle and starve the agencies that gather this context — a fate that seems likely under the current management.

By MIKE MEYERS

FEBRUARY 24, 2017 — 6:28PM

How tempting to gauge reality by self-fashioned yardsticks. Economists rightly worry that the Republican-led Congress and the Trump administration will do just that.

For years, Congress has been slashing budgets for gathering economic statistics — blithely acting as if calculating mass layoffs, worker pay and benefits, exports and imports, or income disparity between regions is a boondoggle.

A new president averse to facts he doesn’t like could further vandalize honest portraits of economic performance.

[ . . . ]

The consequences could be a federal government that ignores warnings of economic distress and makes misguided policy choices that leave millions of Americas the poorer for it. Calculated chaos — or, rather, chaos born of miscalculation.

Just this month, the Trump administration has embarked on distorting economic reality.

The White House privately has pondered changing the way trade balances are measured — to artificially balloon the size of U.S. trade deficits, the Wall Street Journal reported. Like magic, a $63.1 billion trade deficit with Mexico last year would become a $115.4 billion deficit.

Fabricated fears would be a call to arms for extreme policies on trade favored by the White House.

“There’s a lot of evidence that some species are conservation-reliant,” J.B. Ruhl, a law professor at Vanderbilt University, told the AP. Political fights over some species have taken decades to resolve, he added, because recovering them from “the brink of extinction is a lot harder than we thought.”

Earth science programs would be cut slightly from $1.9 billion to $1.8 billion in annual funding.

The blueprint, though, calls for eliminating four earth science missions: PACE, OCO-3, DSCOVR Earth-viewing instruments, and CLARREO Pathfinder.DSCOVR, the Deep Space Climate Observatory was originally proposed by former Vice President Al Gore, and uses satellites to measure the earth’s carbon levels.

[ . . . ]

Trump’s budget also calls for cutting $250 million in grants for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) under the Commerce Department to help coastal communities deal with climate change. Trump’s budget also proposes cuts to Environmental Protection Agency climate programs.

The proposed budget also calls for eliminating NASA $115 million Office of Education in favor of consolidating educational efforts under the agency’s Science Mission Directorate.

Trump vs. the media: the war over facts

PUTTING IT IN PERSPECTIVE

The president’s collision with the media is changing the way newsrooms operate – and may rejuvenate journalism.

How quickly things change. Today the United States has a president who elicits applause when he calls reporters “among the most dishonest human beings on earth.” They are “scum,” he says, “the lowest form of life” and “enemies.” His top adviser, Steve Bannon, labels the news media as “the opposition party.”

Today the very meaning of truth and fact is called into question. President Trump has repeatedly claimed that, were it not for massive voter fraud, he – not Hillary Clinton – would have won the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes. He alleges that “thousands” of Massachusetts residents were bused into New Hampshire to vote against him. Both charges lack evidence.

[ . . . ]

When Mr. Trump is confronted with contradictory evidence, his response isn’t to admit error, or even to cease repeating the claims. He attacks the critics, none more vociferously than the news media. Presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway, in one confrontation with a TV interviewer, controversially referred to “alternative facts.”

[ . . . ]

But are Trump’s venomous attacks – propelled to countless true believers in his tweets and passed along on partisan websites – “just politics”? The consequences to some journalists have been real and personal. Reporters who have criticized Trump have had their home addresses and the names of their children distributed through extremist sites. The Washington Post retained security guards to protect one of its reporters who had been threatened anonymously for his coverage. Female journalists and reporters with Jewish-sounding names regularly endure scathing assaults on social media. Former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly’s criticisms of Trump so riled some in her audience that she hired an armed guard to accompany her and her children as they vacationed at Disney World.

These threats and attacks come because the news reporters are doing their jobs. They report embarrassing facts about Trump’s behavior or his predilection for repeating statements that are – and you can choose your own word here – inaccurate, falsehoods, exaggerations, or lies.

[ . . . ]

At this point in the nation’s history, having a president with little regard for facts that challenge his beliefs isn’t a trivial matter. American democracy presupposes a well-informed citizenry – that is, it depends upon voters making decisions using factual information. Legendary columnist Walter Lippmann wrote in 1920, “There can be no liberty for a community which lacks the means by which to detect lies.” That is as true today as it was a century ago and serves well in defining the purpose of serious journalism in the Trump era.

White House Urged to Suspend, Investigate Sebastian Gorka

“If the allegations prove accurate, Gorka needs to be removed from his position. A man who has sworn an oath to a group glorifying Nazi-era antisemitism has no business serving alongside those who have sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

The Forward reported today that leaders of the “Historical Vitézi Rend” claim Gorka is an official member of the organization, which is a reconstitution of the World War II era Vitézi Rend group. The State Department lists Vitézi Rend as having been “under the direction of the Nazi Government of Germany during World War II,” and classifies members of this group as inadmissible to the United States under the Immigration and Nationality Act. The original Vitézi Rend organization, of which the Historical Vitézi Rend organization claims to be an heir, was established as a nationalist group by Hitler collaborator Admiral Miklos Horthy. The Historical Vitézi Rend group ascribes to nationalist, racist, and antisemitic ideologies similar to those of the original organization.

Human Rights First continues to urge President Trump to make clear that he condemns all forms of antisemitism and intolerance, including by supporting a thorough investigation into allegations regarding Sebastian Gorka.

Thank a Government Scientist

Federal scientists are working hard every day to make the food we eat, the medications we take, the air we breathe, and so much more safe for all Americans. Unfortunately, these same scientists are hearing harsh rhetoric attacking the safeguards they provide, some are being muzzled by orders prohibiting them to speak out about their research, and all are uncertain about what the Trump administration and Congress might due to cut science-based programs and their staff.

Help pushback against the anti-science rhetoric from the Trump administration with some appreciation: Take a moment to thank a government scientist today. Let them know how much you appreciate the crucial role they play in our daily lives and that you will advocate for science-based policies every day!

Send a tweet or Facebook message using the hashtag #ThankAGovScientist to the agencies of your choice—or a federal scientist you know personally—using one of the following handles:
Post on the Environment Protection Agency Facebook page

If you don’t have a Twitter or Facebook account, write a thank you card to one of the agencies listed above with a message of appreciation and encouragement and mail it to the following address—we will deliver it for you:

Please follow – March for Science on twitter and show up for one of the many April 22, 2017 Marches for Science happening throughout the world to support science, scientists and non-politicized scientific facts, data, accuracy and research being undermined today by Trump administration and GOP controlled House and Senate in America, in right wing media outlets, and in many state legislatures.

**

When I March for Science, I’ll March for Equity, Inclusion, and Access

We are on the verge of something big. Scientists as a group are politically engaged like never before. They are communicating with decisionmakers, ready to march, and ready to run for office. The March for Science—an event that formed organically by a few enthusiastic people on Reddit and snowballed from there—is slated to be the largest demonstration for science that this country has ever seen. I’ve personally been blown away by the unprecedented support for scientists in the streets.

Scientists are frantically copying U.S. climate data, fearing it might vanish under Trump

In recent weeks, President-elect Donald Trump has nominated a growing list of Cabinet members who have questioned the overwhelming scientific consensus around global warming. His transition team at the Department of Energy has asked agency officials for names of employees and contractors who have participated in international climate talks and worked on the scientific basis for Obama administration-era regulations of carbon emissions. One Trump adviser suggested that NASA no longer should conduct climate research and instead should focus on space exploration.

Those moves have stoked fears among the scientific community that Trump, who has called the notion of man-made climate change “a hoax” and vowed to reverse environmental policies put in place by President Obama, could try to alter or dismantle parts of the federal government’s repository of data on everything from rising sea levels to the number of wildfires in the country.

Michael Halpern, deputy director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the advocacy group Union of Concerned Scientists, argued that Trump has appointed a “band of climate conspiracy theorists” to run transition efforts at various agencies, along with nominees to lead them who share similar views.

[ . . . ]

“What are the most important .gov climate assets?” Eric Holthaus, a meteorologist and self-proclaimed “climate hawk,” tweeted from his Arizona home Saturday evening. “Scientists: Do you have a US .gov climate database that you don’t want to see disappear?”

Within hours, responses flooded in from around the country. Scientists added links to dozens of government databases to a Google spreadsheet. Investors offered to help fund efforts to copy and safeguard key climate data. Lawyers offered pro bono legal help. Database experts offered server space and help organizing mountains of data. In California, Santos began building an online repository to “make sure these data sets remain freely and broadly accessible.”

Climate data from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have been politically vulnerable. When Tom Karl, director of the National Centers for Environmental Information, and his colleagues published a study in 2015 seeking to challenge the idea that there had been a global warming “slowdown” or “pause” during the 2000s, they relied, in significant part, on updates to NOAA’s ocean temperature data set, saying the data “do not support the notion of a global warming ‘hiatus.’”

In Philadelphia, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, along with members of groups such as Open Data Philly and the software company Azavea, have been meeting to figure out ways to harvest and store important data sets.

Please go read this article from its original source and share it as much as possible – the more people that help protect the data, research and information now and going forward, the better as Trump and the GOP begin dismantling as much as possible from the inside of every US government agency.

Every other year a team of geophysicists and weather geeks told the Bloomberg administration about the storm surge that would come and why it would be exceptionally flooding to areas of the city. They explained why protection was necessary while there was still time to do something about it and why it was needed. They used charts and briefs with clear explanations but each time were sent away with nothing done, not one thing accomplished. When Hurricane Sandy came, there was no protection whatsoever.

**

In the late 60’s, the scrubbers being requested of oil industry facilities and other high polluting industries would’ve cost between $30 and $60 per smokestack and effluent release pipe – but, no – they wouldn’t do any of it and hired millions of dollars worth of lawyers, pr firms, lobbyists and “experts” to prevent having to do anything.

In the 70’s, it would have cost about $80 each to put that same filter on each stack and about $120 each for the effluent streams. In the 80’s, it would’ve cost about $300 each and $450, respectively. Then in the 90’s, it would’ve been from $600 to $3,000 depending on the system required to be placed, based upon the chemicals being discharged into the air, soil or water by the industry. But, no.

After the year 2000, some of those prices actually went down because of better and cheaper systems and materials with a much better understanding of treating whole systems in a more integrated way – but still, no. All the while, the damage was being done to the environment, to people, to communities and to entire regions of our nation.

And, all the time this damage was continuing to be done to the environment on massive scales across multiple industries, they were spending literally hundreds of millions of dollars on not doing anything. Industries, both individually and collectively as well as their industry associations spent far more on not doing anything or not being required by government to do anything than would’ve been spent if they had simply done something appropriate about it at any given point.

In some jurisdictions, in some states, EPA standards were applied but in many, many others, they were not. After 9/11 because of demand for filtration systems to prevent possible terrorist attacks or at least ameliorate them, and because the value of our US dollar having changed generally negatively, those 1960’s $30 scrubber filters would’ve cost more like $12,000 – $18,000 each even with the newer materials and methods.

Industries and industry groups spent decades of spending what became billions, maybe even trillions of dollars all told, across all of the polluting industries. These costs for attorneys’ fees, fines (occasionally), paying lawyers to appeal the fines till hell freezes over, retaining pr firms, supporting climate denial think tanks, hiring lobbyists and paying lobby firms retainers, supporting PACs, making campaign contributions to anti-EPA and climate denial candidates, and paying “experts” to discredit and decimate the reputations of climate change supporting scientists far exceed the imagination. And, industries supporting those costs spent real money far in excess by many times over what it would’ve ever cost to have stopped sending pollutants into the air, water, soil and forever altering the environment with it.

Thirty something years too late to fix it and now, they’re saying they want to be responsible corporate citizens as politicians they’ve bought are starting to say we might ought to do something about this. As our weather becomes more extreme by each day forward, as our sea levels rise and flooding entrenches entire areas of our country month after month where it had not been expected but once every hundred years or thousand years, when rains come with twenty inches or more in numbers of hours over a couple days rather than across months or weeks, and as arctic glaciers melt that have been there longer than humanity has existed – yeah, now it becomes a thing. It is too late. We have passed the tipping point and it is way too late to worry about it now.

Tree huggers they laughed and smirked, mocking the shunned hippy folks they thought them to be. But now, as it turns out – trees lower the temperature of the climate by two degrees. And, wouldn’t that be handy about now? But the corporate giants of industry cut all the old growth forest and jungles down that they could get their hands on and still to this day, what is left of them are being cut down, clear cut, burned into more carbon in the atmosphere across the globe as if there is not one reason not to do it. And today, see this if nothing else –

A new study has for the first time demonstrated giant intrinsic electroresistance in conventional ferroelectric films, where flipping of the spontaneous polarization increased conductance by up to 50,000 percent. The key distinction of ferroelectric memory switches is that they can be tuned through thermodynamic properties of ferroelectrics. Numerous previous works have demonstrated defect-mediated memory, but defects cannot easily be predicted, controlled, analyzed or reduced in size. Ferroelectric switching, however, surpasses all of these limitations and will offer unprecedented functionality. The authors believe that using phase transitions such as ferroelectric switching to implement memory and computing is the real fundamental distinction of future information technologies.
[Polarization Control of Electron Tunneling into Ferroelectric Surfaces, Science 12 June 2009: Vol. 324. no. 5933, pp. 1421 – 1425 DOI: 10.1126/science.1171200]
(June 25, 2009)
# Transmitting information using chemistry
(PhysOrg.com)

Information transmission currently require electrons or photons for transmitting information. Scientists have now demonstrated a third method of transmission: chemical reactions. Based on a flammable “infofuse,” the new system combines information technology and chemistry into a new area the researchers call infochemistry. The system transmits information in the form of coded pulses of light generated entirely by chemical reactions, without electricity. The system is self-powered, with power being generated by combustion. The power density of the system is higher than that of electrochemical batteries, and has the advantage of not discharging over time. The study demonstrates direct chemical to binary encoding, and transmission of information at a useful bit rate, without batteries. The system consists of a strip or fuse of combustible material (nitrocellulose) about 1 mm long. When ignited, a yellow-orange flame moves along the infofuse. To encode information, the scientists patterned the fuse with various metallic salts, which could be done using a desktop inkjet printer or a micropipettor. With their different emission wavelengths, the salts created distinct emission lines in different regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. By coding letters of the alphabet using patterns of metallic salts, the scientists transmitted the phrase, “LOOK MOM NO ELECTRICITY” on a single infofuse using the new technique.
[Infochemistry and infofuses for the chemical storage and transmission of coded information, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. vol. 106, no. 23, 9147-9150]
(June 24, 2009)
# Polymer solar cell with near-perfect internal efficiency
(PhysOrg.com)

Researchers have developed a polymer-based solar cell with an ability not yet seen in similar cells: almost every single photon it absorbs is converted into a pair of electric-charge carriers, and every one of those pairs is collected at the cell’s electrodes. The overall efficiency of the cell is six percent, excellent for polymer-based solar cells. The cell incorporates an alternating co-polymer in bulk heterojunction composite with a fullerene derivative. The cell exhibits the best performance of any bulk heterojunction system investigated so far, according to the authors.
[Bulk heterojunction solar cells with internal quantum efficiency approaching 100%, Nature Photonics 3, 297 – 302 (2009) doi:10.1038/nphoton.2009.69]
(June 24, 2009)
# Elusive forms of water may have been found
(Nature News)

In a study done in 1992, computer simulations of water suggested that hydrogen bonds might produce two different types of liquid if water was made very cold and squeezed to high pressures. In one form, the hydrogen bonds create a rather open, sparse network of water molecules, called low-density liquid (LDL) water. In the other, water molecules press closer at the cost of breaking some hydrogen bonds, forming a high-density liquid (HDL). The two types of liquid water changed from one to the other in an abrupt ‘phase transition’ in the simulations. Now, researchers of a new study report that they have experimentally observed these two phases. They used electron spin resonance to study the mobility of water molecules within tiny pockets of liquid trapped between crystallites of ice at temperatures down to around –183 °C. The researchers don’t measure the movement of the water directly: instead, they watch the motions of an organic ‘probe’ molecule called TEMPOL. However, some researchers in the field remain unconvinced.
[Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA published online. doi:10.1073/pnas.0900734106 (2009)]
(June 24, 2009)
# Carbon nanotubes wired for pressure sensing

Abstract: The combination of high strength and high radiation damage tolerance in nanolaminate composites can be achieved when the individual layers in these composites are only a few nanometers thick and therefore these materials contain a large volume fraction associated with interfaces. These interfaces act both as obstacles to slip, as well as sinks for radiation-induced defects. The morphological and phase stabilities of these nano-composites under ion irradiation are explored as a function of layer thickness, temperature and interface structure. Using results on model systems such as Cu-Nb, we highlight the critical role of the atomic structure of the incoherent interfaces that exhibit multiple states with nearly degenerate energies in acting as sinks for radiation-induced point defects. Reduced radiation damage also leads to a reduction in the irradiation hardening, particularly at layer thickness of approximately 5 nm and below. The strategies for design of radiation-tolerant structural materials based on the knowledge gained from this work will be discussed.

Full Article…

***

Materials News

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* Ultra-thin material absorbs almost 100% light
(Leiden University)

Credit: Eduard Driessen, Michiel de Dood, Leiden University

Researchers have demonstrated that 4.5 nanometers thick niobiumnitride (NbN) is ultra-absorbent with respect to light. They have recorded a light absorption of almost 100%, while the best light absorption to date was 50%. This research brings the realization of an ideal light detector a step closer. The most important part of the detector is a lattice of ultra-absorbent NbN filaments. When an s-light particle falls on the lattice, it is absorbed (light has two kinds of polarizations: s and p). A p-particle is reflected. This p-particle can then in turn be collected by a second detector so that all the light is detected. Calculations show that the wavelength (colour) of the light particle has hardly any influence. The detector can therefore also be used for particles with completely different wavelengths, such as detection systems for telecommunications and infra-red equipment.
[The perfect absorber, Appl. Phys. Lett. 94, 171109 (2009); DOI:10.1063/1.3126062 ]
(June 30, 2009)
* Microspheres change color instantly in response to external magnetic field
(University of California, Riverside)

Credit: Yin lab, Univ. Cal. Riverside

Microscopic polymer beads that change color instantly and reversibly when external magnetic fields acting upon the microspheres change orientation, have been fabricated. The beads or magnetochromatic microspheres have excellent structural stability. They also are highly compatible with various types of dispersion media such as water, alcohol, hexane and even polymer solutions, allowing them to retain magnetically tunable colors in a variety of chemical environments. To fabricate the microspheres, the researchers first mixed magnetic iron oxide particles into a resin, which is initially in liquid phase but later turns solid on exposure to ultraviolet curable resin. They then dispersed the resin solution in oil (mineral oil or silicon oil), whereupon the resin transformed into spherical droplets in the oil. Next, the researchers applied an external magnetic field to organize the iron oxide particles into periodically ordered structures. These structures display a reflective color if viewed along the direction of the magnetic field. Finally, the research team exposed the liquid system to ultraviolet radiation to polymerize the resin droplets and make them solid microspheres.
[Magnetochromatic Microspheres: Rotating Photonic Crystals, J. Am. Chem. Soc., Article ASAP DOI: 10.1021/ja903626h Publication Date (Web): June 15, 2009]
(June 30, 2009)
* Box-shaped 3D-DNA origami
(Royal Society of Chemistry)

Credit: A. Kuzuya and M. Komiyama, Chem. Commun.

One important area in DNA nanotechnology is DNA origami in which single-stranded DNA is folded to construct arbitrary structures. These can then be used as platforms for nanostructures such as protein arrays, gold nanoparticles and messenger RNA. Until now, the focus has been on 2D origami, but now researchers have shifted their focus to 3D structures. They folded DNA strands into an open-box shape and identified it using atomic force microscopy. For guest encapsulation, the box is designed to fold into an open form first, and can be closed afterwards by adding appropriate DNA strands. The outside and inside of the box can be distinguished throughout the process so it may be possible to place a guest molecule in the face of the open form before closing it. The boxes are similar in size to virus capsids, which are currently gaining interest as nanocontainers, but the faces of the DNA boxes are easier to chemically modify, enabling selective capture of various guest molecules.
[Design and construction of a box-shaped 3D-DNA origami, Chem. Commun., 2009 DOI: 10.1039/b907800b]
(June 30, 2009)
* Tiny ratchet could lead to cancer traps
(Physics World)

Credit: Nature Physics

Scientists have built a tiny device that can separate some types of cancerous and non-cancerous cells. Resembling a ratchet, the device exploits the fact that different cells use different strategies to squeeze their way through narrow passages. The team believes that similar ratchets could be used to trap metastatic cancer cells, which can spread the disease throughout the body. Metastasis is the process by which cancer cells break away from a tumour and move through the body — creating more tumors and often decreasing a patient’s chance of survival. Understanding how these cells move could lead to new medical treatments that stop metastasis — or even the development of “cancer traps” that remove cancer cells from circulation.
[Directing cell motions on micropatterned ratchets, Nature Physics Published online: 14 June 2009 | doi:10.1038/nphys1306]
(June 29, 2009)
* CO trapped on a chip
(Science)

Microfluidics technology has facilitated remarkable miniaturization of chemical synthesis platforms; through electrically gated solution flow and mixing, molecular reactions can be carried out on chips several centimeters across. However, when it comes to more fundamental dynamics studies, involving probing gas-phase molecules in specific quantum mechanical states, experiments still tend to require much larger interaction areas. Researchers have taken a step toward miniaturization in this latter regime by demonstrating the isolation of a cold gas-phase beam of CO molecules just above a microelectrode-decorated chip. The technique relies on rapidly modulated electric fields that trap and then slow down the incoming molecules through dipole interactions. Once brought to a stop, the molecules can be held on the chip for a discrete period and then released to a detector.
[Trapping Molecules on a Chip, Science 26 June 2009: Vol. 324. no. 5935, pp. 1699 – 1702 DOI: 10.1126/science.1175975]
(June 26, 2009)
* Self-assembled tetrahedral container molecule encapsulates white phosphorus
(Eurekalert/Cambridge University)

For centuries it has been known for its violent combustion upon contact with air – but this week a team of researchers reveals that it has tamed one of the most hazardous chemical substances, white phosphorous, a feedstock for the preparation of many useful chemicals such as weed killers, insecticides and fertiliser. White phosphorous is also infamous for its propensity to burst into flame. For this reason it is often used in military campaigns to create smokescreens to mask movement from the enemy, as well as an incendiary in bombs, artillery and mortars. The team created a ‘container molecule’ to stabilise white phosphorous indefinitely. This renders it safe until such time as a signal agent, benzene, is applied to release it.
[White Phosphorus Is Air-Stable Within a Self-Assembled Tetrahedral Capsule, Science 26 June 2009: Vol. 324. no. 5935, pp. 1697 – 1699 DOI: 10.1126/science.1175313]
(June 26, 2009)
* Stream of sand behaves like water
(National Science Foundation/Univ. Chicago)

Researchers recently showed that dry granular materials such as sands, seeds and grains have properties similar to liquid, forming water-like droplets when poured from a given source. The finding could be important to a wide range of industries that use fluidized dry particles. It was previously thought that dry particles lacked sufficient surface tension to form droplets like ordinary liquids. But, in a first-time accomplishment, the researchers used high-speed photography to measure minute levels of surface tension and detect droplet formation in flows of dry granular materials. They observed falling 100-micrometer-diameter glass beads, or streaming sand, and found that forces as much as 100,000 times smaller than those that produce surface tension in ordinary liquids could cause droplet formation in granular streams and cause these dry streams to behave like an ultra-low-surface-tension liquid. They also directly measured grain-to-grain interactions with an atomic force microscope.
[High-speed tracking of rupture and clustering in freely falling granular streams, Nature 459, 1110-1113 (25 June 2009) | doi:10.1038/nature08115]
(June 25, 2009)

ADELPHI, Md. (AP) — Government experts called for sweeping safety restrictions Tuesday on the most widely used painkiller, including reducing the maximum dose of Tylenol and eliminating prescription drugs such as Vicodin and Percocet.

The Food and Drug Administration assembled 37 experts to recommend ways to reduce deadly overdoses with acetaminophen, which is the leading cause of liver failure in the U.S. and sends 56,000 people to the emergency room annually. About 200 die each year.

We’re here because there are inadvertent overdoses with this drug that are fatal and this is the one opportunity we have to do something that will have a big impact, said Dr. Judith Kramer of Duke University Medical Center.

But over-the-counter cold medicines — such as Nyquil and Theraflu — that combine other drugs with acetaminophen can stay on the market, the panel said, rejecting a proposal to take them off store shelves.

The FDA is not required to follow the advice of its panels, though it usually does. The agency gave no indication when it would act on the recommendations.
In a series of votes Tuesday, the panel recommended 21-16 to lower the current maximum daily dose of over-the-counter acetaminophen from 4 grams, or eight pills of a medication such as Extra Strength Tylenol. They did not specify how much it should be lowered.

The panel also endorsed limiting the maximum single dose of the drug to 650 milligrams. That would be down from the 1,000-milligram dose, or two tablets of Extra Strength Tylenol.

A majority of panelists also said the 1,000-milligram dose should only be available by prescription.

The industry group that represents Johnson & Johnson, Wyeth and other companies defended the current dosing that appears on over-the-counter products.

[ etc. ]

If the combination products are eliminated, the acetaminophen and the other ingredients could be prescribed separately. In effect, patients would take two pills instead of one, and be more aware of the acetaminophen they are consuming.

Vicodin is marketed by Abbott Laboratories, while Percocet is marketed by Endo Pharmaceuticals. Both painkillers also are available in cheaper generic versions.

Drug companies avoided the most damaging potential outcome with the defeat of proposal to pull NyQuil and other over-the-counter cold and cough medicines that combine acetaminophen with other drugs.

These drugs can be dangerous when taken with Tylenol or other drugs containing acetaminophen, according to the FDA, but cause only 10 percent of acetaminophen-related deaths.

I don’t think we should be advocating a solution to a problem that really is not there, said Dr. Osemwota Omoigui, of the Los Angeles pain clinic.

A recall of combination cold medicines would have cost manufacturers hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. Total sales of all acetaminophen drugs reached $2.6 billion last year, with 80 percent of the market comprised of over-the-counter products, according to IMS Health, a health care analysis firm.

[ . . . ]

This basically puts more government oversight into something that heretofore has been less than present, Brozak said.

AP Business writers Stephen Manning and Donna Borak contributed to this report.

A bottle of Tylenol, which contains the ingredient acetaminophen, appears with its box wrapper, in Walpole, Mass., Tuesday, June 30, 2009. In a series of votes Tuesday, a Food and Drug Administration panel endorsed lowering the maximum dose of over-the-counter acetaminophen _ the key ingredient in Tylenol, Excedrin and other medications. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

BRUSSELS, June 30 (Reuters) – Belgian prosecutors said on Tuesday they carried out a raid at the headquarters of BNP Paribas Fortis, the Belgian bank now owned by France’s BNP Paribas BNPP.P as part of a market manipulation probe.

The raids took place in the framework of an investigation which was launched months ago into possible manipulation of share prices, a Brussels prosecutor said.

He added that the probe focused also, among other things, on whether Fortis withheld information from its shareholders.

A Fortis spokesman confirmed prosecutors had questioned former Fortis Holding (FOR.BR) Chief Executive Filip Dierckx as part of the investigation.

Belgian prosecutors are also investigating suspected insider trading in financial group Fortis (FOR.BR) by a large shareholder in a separate probe launched in early June.

[ . . . ]

French bank BNP Paribas took control of Fortis Bank Belgium in May after months of delay due to shareholder opposition. ($1=.7077 Euro) (Reporting by Antonia van de Velde; editing by Simon Jessop)

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Consumer and labor groups demanded Bank of America Corp and other lenders reform their sales practices so that workers under pressure to meet sales quotas do not saddle customers with costly and unnecessary products.

[ etc. ]

He complained that the bank regularly violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, and sometimes pushed workers to falsely threaten legal action against customers. He said his team was sometimes pushed to call customers’ neighbors about delinquent accounts, to embarrass the customer and actually encourage the neighbor to bring over a message.

Shares of Bank of America rose 5 cents to $13.24 in early afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

Investors in life-insurance based income products offered by Keydata Investment Services may have become the victims of a £103m suspected fraud, according to the administrator appointed by the Financial Services Authority to sell the company.

PwC said on Tuesday that the second-hand life insurance policies backing Keydata’s Secure Income Bonds 1,2 and 3 had been liquidated and the proceeds “misappropriated”, and that income and redemptions had been paid “in an irregular fashion” out of the company’s own funds, rather than from the underlying investments.

[ etc. ]

No income can be paid out to investors in Secure Income Bonds 1, 2 and 3 and in Income Property Bonds 1-6, and redemption have been suspended while PwC tries to trace the assets underlying these products.

Further proof that Britain’s economy is still in the doldrums came on Wednesday when the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) forecast that the UK economy will contract by 4.3 per cent this year and said it expects only “modest growth” in 2010.

[ etc. ]

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, it emerged that the US economy had contracted by more than 5 per cent in the first three months of the year.

Since the start of the month, the FTSE 100 is 5.4 per cent lower, the S&P 500 is down 2.4 per cent and the FTSE Emerging Markets index has lost 5.2 per cent.

[ . . . ]

Another looming problem is the oversupply of government bonds in the market.

This year, projected gross issuance by OECD governments will jump to almost $12,000bn of debt – up from $9,000bn two years ago.

Yields on government bonds are rising on concerns about the scale of this issuance.

Turkey’s EU accession talks are going at a glacial pace and risk suspension if Ankara fails to open its ports and airports to Cyprus this year.

France and Germany want to give Turkey a privileged partnership with the EU.

But Mr Erdogan insisted our goal is full membership .

He also said it was populist and wrong to use Turkey’s bid as an election issue.

Some right-wing parties opposed to Turkey’s bid made gains in the recent European Parliament elections.

Slow progress

The BBC’s Oana Lungescu says both opposition inside the EU and insufficient democratic reforms in Turkey are hampering its bid.

Next week will see a small step forward, when Turkey is due to start talks on taxation, one of the 35 areas where it is negotiating EU entry terms.

Turkish diplomats argue that their country is of strategic importance to Europe and that its eventual accession would send a positive signal to the whole Muslim world.
So far, Turkey has opened talks on 10 out of the 35 negotiation chapters in the accession process, which started in October 2005.

But eight chapters have been frozen because of Ankara’s refusal to open up its ports and airports to traffic from Cyprus, an EU member.

Turkey says it will not do this until the EU takes steps to end the Turkish Cypriot community’s economic isolation.

The City of London is hoping to win support from the US administration to head off tough regulation from Brussels on hedge funds and private equity firms.

Delegates from the City of London Corporation, a standard bearer for UK financial services, visited Washington last week to give warning of a threat to British and US companies from a proposed European directive on alternative investment fund managers.

The EU directive, a response to public anger at the excessive risk-taking that led to the credit crisis, would require many hedge funds and private equity firms to register with regulators and disclose more about themselves and their investments.

They would also have to meet increased minimum capital requirements and limits on borrowing, which have triggered threats from some big UK hedge funds to move overseas unless the plan is rewritten.

Direct lobbying of the US Treasury and key financial committees in Congress is a shift in strategy from the corporation, which holds regular meetings with members of the New York financial establishment.
“We’ve had worrying trends that the Anglo-Saxon model is being seriously questioned in terms of a more centrist approach to economic management,” said Stuart Fraser, head of the City’s policy and resources committee.

Mr Fraser, also a director at UK stockbroker Brewin Dolphin, told the Financial Times there was a danger of “tit-for-tat regulation” between Europe and the US. “We need to harmonise the regulation,” he said. “Why have two different standards, which would be bad for global trade and for the City of London?”

Alternative investment funds based outside the EU would be forced to comply with the directive or an equivalent standard after a three-year transition period. Otherwise they would be banned from marketing to European investors.

Private equity bosses have given warning that this could trigger a protectionist backlash. “You are opening the door to all sorts of responsive legislation, not only in the US but also Asia,” Jonathan Russell, chairman of the European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association, said.

European regulators say the directive would make life easier for non-EU funds, as a passport system would mean they would need to seek approval only once, rather than from each different country, to market to European investors.

Under current US proposals, hedge funds would have to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission and both they and private equity firms would have to disclose more information.

But most US proposals for financial regulation have focused on the systemic risks in banks and insurers, not alternative investment funds.

Lord Myners, the UK’s City minister, said the directive was “flawed” and showed “poor understanding” of the alternative investment industry. The British government was working hard to improve it.

UBS, the custodian bank to Luxalpha, one of the main European funds invested in Bernard Madoff, should compensate investors for their losses, the French regulator said yesterday, write Scheherazade Daneshkhu in Paris and Haig Simonian in Zurich.

Speaking on publication of the regulator’s annual report, Jean-Pierre Jouyet, president of the Autorité des Marchés Financiers, said custodian banks are responsible and investors should be compensated .

The Madoff fraud demonstrated the need for stronger rules to protect investors, he said. The public needed to be informed of the risks in investments such as the 1bn ($1.4bn) Luxembourg-based Luxalpha fund, which was almost wholly invested with Madoff.

However, UBS rejected responsibility, saying that investors in Luxalpha were fully aware of the nature of the investments .

The Luxalpha fund was created at the explicit request of wealthy clients who requested a tailormade fund to enable them to continue investing their assets with Madoff , according to UBS, adding that fund documentation made it very clear that UBS Luxembourg was not expected to be responsible for the safekeeping of the assets .

It is barely nine months since the collapse of Lehman Brothers ushered in one of the worst financial crises since the Great Depression. But for the strongest banks, the second quarter of 2009, which closed on Tuesday, has confirmed the upbeat trends of the first quarter.

They have benefitted from lively markets for commodity and foreign exchange trading, at profit margins that are between two and eight times higher than before the height of the financial crisis last autumn. At the same time, companies have been rushing to issue new debt and equity.

More fundamentally and sustainably there have been clear shifts in market share between the banks – in everything from UK mortgages to US Treasury bill issuance – as aggressive groups have taken advantage of opportunities left by weakened rivals.

BanksOne investment banker says: “There used to be 15 banks competing. Now there are six. This is a phenomenal environment. I’ve never seen anything like this in 20 years in the business.”

Prime brokerage – the business of providing financing services to the world’s hedge funds – is not an obvious place to make money, given the troubles that the sector has suffered in recent months, as investors have lost large sums and demanded back much of what was left. But for the banks providing the financing, the market still promises to be lucrative.

The likes of Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan, and to an extent Barclays and BNP Paribas, have been challenging the traditional dominance of Goldman and Morgan Stanley, which once held an estimated 80 per cent of the market between them.

Market participants estimate that the big two now have barely half the market, with Credit Suisse and Deutsche on about 15 per cent apiece. The change was driven from both sides – hedge funds wanted to rely less on a single counterparty for their financial affairs, while Goldman and Morgan Stanley have been shrinking their balance sheets.

Even with hedge fund assets at an estimated 50 per cent of previous levels, the most successful banks reckon they are on track to make just as much money this year as in a boom year, though with lower ratios of lending to collateral and higher prices.

“We’re putting less balance sheet at risk,” says one senior banker. “But we are making the same bottom line.”

The trade credit market has similarly been “dislocated”, as bankers like to say, by the financial crisis. While much of the market used to be in the hands of Fortis, Citi and RBS, the combination of near-collapse (for the former) and balance sheet shrinkage (for the other two), has left a larger share of the market for a handful of others, such as HSBC, Deutsche Bank, BNP and Standard Chartered.

For them, the market – though shrunken by the turmoil in trade flows over the past year – has been lucrative, reflecting a less competitive market and higher perceived risk. Stuart Nivison, HSBC’s head of trade in Europe, says: “Pricing typically doubled towards the end of last year,”.

Probably the most visible, though still hard to measure, change in market share has been in mortgages, and nowhere more so than in the UK where a large swath of traditional lenders simply does not have the funding to maintain mortgage lending.

In a market set to grant net new lending of close to zero this year, it is the big groups – with the deposit base to fund their mortgages – that are dominant, regardless of past troubles.

RBS’s mortgage lending rose 9 per cent year-on-year in the three months to March to £76.1bn, as it strove to meet a government commitment to make £9bn of extra mortgage finance available – a quid pro quo for its state bail-out. Santander lent about £800m for new mortgages in the first quarter.

RBS, Santander and Barclays recorded net new lending. Ray Boulger, at Charcol mortgage advisers, says the UK market is dominated by RBS, Santander and Barclays, plus to a lesser extent Nationwide, Lloyds and HSBC – a far cry from a couple of years ago when there were 165 mortgage providers and tens of thousands of mortgage deals.

There have been other shifts – in private banking, for example, where UBS’s problems have unsettled some clients and sent them towards small-scale Swiss competitors.

But for the most part, the new world order is simply a matter of one set of big banks giving way to another set of big banks, with the benefit of higher prices.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said that “reevaluation” of format of Geneva talks would be required amid “emerging new situation” in the Caucasus.

In a statement released on Monday, ahead of the sixth round of Geneva talks planned for July 1, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that the upcoming meeting would be held against the background of “difficult conditions” amid closing OSCE and UN observer missions in Georgia.

“Despite Russia’s constructive and transparent position in favor of maintaining the field missions of OSCE and UN in South Caucasus, the western partners and Georgia are doing their best to close down the activities of international observers in this volatile region,” it said. “Meanwhile, the situation on the borders is still tense; the Georgian forces and police continue maneuvering near the borders of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.”

“It is obvious, that emerging new situation in Trans-Caucasus requires serious reevaluation, including in respect of format and prospects of the Geneva discussions,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

“In the face of persisting internal political instability in Georgia and further deteriorating social-economic situation of its [Georgian] population is fraught with risk of new surge of tensions.”

It also reiterated Moscow’s long-standing insistence on the need of signing non-use of force agreements between Tbilisi and Sokhumi, as well as between Tbilisi and Tskhinvali.

“In the current condition, the need for legally binding documents on non-use for force gain even more importance… The international community should have firm guarantees that the terrible tragedy of last August will not reoccur in Trans-Caucasus,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
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Third round of Russia-U.S. nuclear talks opens in Geneva

* Third round of Russia-U.S. nuclear talks opens in Geneva
* Third round of Russia-U.S. nuclear talks opens in Geneva

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* Third round of Russia-U.S. nuclear talks set for June 22
* Medvedev hopes for progress in nuclear talks with U.S.
* Russia could scrap nuclear arms alongside other nations – Putin
* Russia to keep at least 1,500 nuclear warheads

16:1522/06/2009
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* Infographics:

World’s nuclear states map
*

12 Russian targets for U.S. nuclear missiles

MOSCOW, June 22 (RIA Novosti) – The third round of comprehensive Russia-U.S. talks on a new strategic arms reduction pact opened on Monday in Geneva, a Russian diplomat told RIA Novosti.

The first two rounds of Russia-U.S. arms reduction talks were held on May 19-20 in Moscow and on June 1-3 in Geneva. The U.S. team of negotiators is led by Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller, while the Russian delegation is headed by Anatoly Antonov, director of the Foreign Ministry’s Department of Security and Disarmament.

The talks are being held behind closed doors at the U.S. mission [in Geneva], the source said, adding that they will continue until June 24.

The Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (START 1), which expires in December 2009, obliges Russia and the United States to reduce nuclear warheads to 6,000 and their delivery vehicles to 1,600 each. In 2002, a follow-up agreement on strategic offensive arms reduction was concluded in Moscow. The agreement, known as the Moscow Treaty, envisioned cuts to 1,700-2,200 warheads by December 2012.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama agreed during their London meeting in early April that the talks would commence virtually immediately.
According to a report published by the U.S. State Department in April, as of January 1 Russia had 3,909 nuclear warheads and 814 delivery vehicles, including ground-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) and strategic bombers.

The same report said the United States had 5,576 warheads and 1,198 delivery vehicles.

Russia, which proposed a new arms reduction agreement with the U.S. in 2005, expects Washington to agree on a deal that would restrict not only the numbers of nuclear warheads, but also place limits on all existing kinds of delivery vehicles.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on June 20 he hopes the U.S. has a good understanding of Russia’s position, voiced by President Medvedev, that any arms cuts should also involve a resolution on the controversial issue of a planned U.S. missile defense shield due to be deployed in Central Europe.

The Kiel Week (Kieler Woche) is an annual sailing event taking place at the port of Kiel, northern Germany. Since 1882, the year of the first race t, the event has grown into a truly grand sailing festival.

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The Ukrainian People May Want a Union State with Russia, but Few Russians Wish to Join the Ukraine

A Ukrainian public opinion study recently published by the Kiev-based Research and Branding polling institute found that top Russian politicians, including Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin, enjoy sky-high public approval ratings—much more impressive than those of their Ukrainian counterparts. Moreover, the number of Ukrainians who want a union state with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan is greater than the number of those rooting to join the European Union.

KIEV/ Opinion polls show that Ukraine is a Russian-leaning country, very different from the one described by Western media and the Ukrainian foreign policy elite. “If we were to fantasize, and pretend that [the Russian Prime Minister] Vladimir Putin would run for the post of Ukrainian president, then according to opinion poll results he would win right off,” sais Alexei Lyashenko, an analyst at Kiev’s Research & Branding (R&B) polling institute. “His only serious competitor would be [Russian President] Dmitry Medvedev.”

The R&B poll published on May 25 shows that for all the rhetoric about the Westward-bound Ukraine breaking free of Russia’s malignant influence and Putin’s imperialism, the reality on the ground is very different. “In fact, Vladimir Putin’s high rating in Ukraine is nothing new, but quite steady,” Lyashenko added. “It was over 50 percent even during the ‘Orange Revolution’.”

Opinion poll results published in May indicate that 58 percent of Ukrainians have a positive attitude toward Vladimir Putin, and 56 percent approve of the current Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Twenty-one percent take a neutral stance, and 16 percent think of them negatively—25 percent disapprove of Putin and 14 percent of Medvedev.
R&B’s survey also found that 35 percent of Ukrainians would like to see Ukraine united with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, compared to 22 percent who wish to join the EU and ten percent who wanted to restore the Soviet Union. These results were confirmed by a poll published on June 17 by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology (KIIS). According to KIIS President Valery Khmelko, 23 percent of Ukrainians desire full unification with Russia – compared to only 12 percent of Russians wanting the same.

Inarguably under the influence of the 2008 and 2009 political and economic crisis wracking Ukraine, the number of Ukrainians rooting for “reunification” has risen over the last year, from 20 percent to 23 percent, and the number of Russians in favor has fallen from 19 percent to 12 percent. “These findings also indicate that the ‘prevailing willingness of the Russians to append Ukraine to their country, forming one state’ is an erroneous idea, as the overwhelming majority of Russians do not want such a union,” said Khmelko.

While only a quarter of Ukrainian respondents want full unification with Russia, 68 percent want an EU-style border-free regime with Russia, with Russia and Ukraine being “independent but friendly states” without a visa regime or custom controls. Only 7.8 percent of respondents were in favor of Ukraine’s relations with Russia becoming the same as its relations with other countries, i.e. with border controls, customs and visas.

In fact, this contrasts even with the prevailing sentiment in Russia, where respondents are far more cautious about union with Ukraine. Perhaps due to the Ukrainian leadership’s antagonistic policies toward Russia, emphasized by the Russian state-controlled media, only 50 percent of Russian respondents want to see a border-free regime between the two countries. Twenty-nine percent want relations with Ukraine to be the same as with all other countries. “Ukrainians’ attitude toward Russia is much better than the Russians’ attitude toward the Ukraine. Over 90 percent of people in Ukraine have a positive attitude toward Russia – and it has become even better over the past year,” Khmelko noted.

According to Lyashenko, the Ukrainian affection for Putin and Medvedev is most concentrated in Eastern Ukraine, where 75 percent think of them positively. However, even in the Western Ukrainian districts where Russian is hardly ever spoken, around 25 percent of respondents described their attitude toward the Russian leaders as favorable.

Surprisingly, the polls found that in contrast to geographical factors, age does not influence the Ukrainians’ attitude toward Russia and its leaders. “The Ukrainian preference for Russian state-controlled television and the desire for strong leadership in the times of crisis also play a role,” said Lyashenko. “But the main reason why Medvedev and Putin score so high is the endless conflicts and score-settling in Ukrainian politics, which make the Russian politicians look good,” he said.

None of the current Ukrainian leaders can compete with Putin and Medvedev in terms of popularity. The pro-Russian head of the opposition Party of Regions Viktor Yanukovych currently enjoys a 25 percent approval rating, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko—14 percent, and the new face, Arsenyi Yatsenyuk, 13 percent. Only two percent of Ukrainians would vote for President Viktor Yushchenko, the most anti-Russian top Ukrainian official, in the upcoming elections in January of 2010.

Nor do Ukrainians have much sympathy for the Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, whom Yushchenko vocally supported during the country’s conflict with Russia over South Ossetia in August of 2008. According to Lyashenko, 45 percent have a negative opinion of Saakashvili, and only 11 percent have a positive one.

Back in March, the Polish daily Rzeczpospolita published an opinion poll claiming that 56 percent of Polish respondents fear Vladimir Putin, and 58 percent believe that Russia’s foreign policy endangers Poland’s national security—this despite the fact that Poland has no border with Russia other than in Kaliningrad, and, unlike the Ukraine, is a member of both NATO and the EU.

One morning in 1983, in my final year at university, I received a postcard from a professor of medieval history. “Would you like to meet up,” he asked, “so we can discuss an interesting career opportunity?”

This took me somewhat by surprise. I had never met this professor and I wasn’t studying medieval history. But these were the early 1980s, when unemployment was rife and every job opportunity had to be grasped with both hands.

Over lunch at a Chinese restaurant, he popped the question: “Would you like to apply for a job with MI6?”
“Of course,” I spluttered over the dim sum and rice wine. So the wheels were set in motion. I travelled to London, signed the Official Secrets Act and answered lots of questions about things such as my family history. But something about me told them I was not their type.

Working overseas, they get to know locals who have access to people of influence or to information that could be of interest to Her Majesty’s Government. The art is to get your contacts to tell you things that they shouldn’t really be telling you

‘John’ –MI6 recruitment head

Nearly 30 years later, MI6’s recruitment methods have changed. Today its hiring system is more open and democratic. The Secret Intelligence Service – as MI6 is formally known – has an informative website where anyone can file an application to join. And the service recently launched an advertising campaign to encourage people to apply. Such openness has a purpose: MI6 wants to attract as many candidates as possible because, from the many who apply, only a very few have the qualities to make the cut.

To get a better sense of how MI6 hires its staff – and what life is like in the service – I meet its head of recruitment. In a large room inside the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the department that sets MI6 its tasks, I am introduced to a tall, affable man, in (I guess) his late 40s.

“My name is John,” he says.

“Is that your real name?” I ask.

“No,” he answers in a deadpan voice. “It’s just a name I use.”

Over the course of the next hour, I discover next to nothing about him. He has spent much of his career on operations in the Middle East. He has been MI6’s recruiting chief for a year. That is it.

SIS, as everyone knows, gathers intelligence for Britain overseas. Like MI5, which runs intelligence operations inside the UK, it has grown considerably following the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 on New York and Washington and the July 7 2005 bombings in London. John will not give any details on the size of the organisation, which is based in Vauxhall, south London, but says: “We are on course to meet the growth targets that the government has set for us over the next few years”.

What kind of jobs do its top professionals do? The focus is the work done by “operational officers”, in particular the “case officers” who plan and carry out covert intelligence operations overseas. Their main task is to recruit and manage agents and information sources worldwide. For about a third of their careers, they will do this on an overseas posting.

“Working overseas,” says John, “they get to know locals who have access to people of influence or to information that could be of interest to Her Majesty’s government. The art is to get your contacts to tell you things that they shouldn’t really be telling you.”
What kind of person makes the ideal applicant? John reels off qualities that might be sought by any big employer – “good intellectual ability, people in the top 40 per cent of their year group at university, people who are politically aware, with a strong interest in international affairs”. Entrants tend to be “good communicators, able to build relations with people”.

This last point, one suspects, is crucial. Persuading individuals living in police states to hand over classified information demands considerable powers of persuasion.

One rumour doing the rounds is that MI6 is keen to recruit people who might have lost their jobs in the City. John says he is certainly keen to recruit from the Square Mile. “We’ve had quite a number of entrants coming out of City jobs and they have been top quality,” he says. “They’ve got very strong skills, often honed by working in financial services.”

But, he insists, they must be sure they can cope with the cut in salary that may come with a move to the public sector. “We spend a lot of time ensuring that entrants don’t come to us with huge personal financial commitments,” he says. “If they do, it can pose a serious risk to security.”

I fire off a string of questions any university undergraduate would ask. Out in the field, is it dangerous? “You may well be sent to parts of the world where the situation is unstable and there is an immediate threat to you,” he replies. “But we’re determined to protect the wellbeing of officers. It’s all about mitigating risk.”

Can you do this kind of thing and have a family life? “Yes. Many operational officers working overseas take their family with them on postings.”

But can you tell your spouse, your parents, what you are doing? “We recommend that people tell the minimum number of relatives and friends what their job is. There’s no bar on this. I know one member of the service who tells his six-year-old what he does. But people in SIS need to think carefully, because it can put relatives under pressure. Best to say you’re a civil servant.”

And if you decide after a few years that you do not like it, that you want to leave, can you do so? “You certainly can. But our retention rate is very high. Some 97.5 per cent of the people who join us stay on throughout their career.”

I take my leave of John, knowing little more about him on departure than I did on arrival. But I pause at the door. “One last thing. The whole James Bond thing – does it get on your nerves?”

He smiles. “We’re not about vodka martinis and Aston Martin DB5s. We do a serious job and we have to keep careful records. But yes, there is certainly an element of excitement.”

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In addition, at least one of your parents must be a British citizen or have substantial ties with the UK (if deceased, the parent must have had British citizenship/substantial ties with the UK). You will also need to meet our residency rule. Normally this means that you will need to have lived in the UK for the last ten years, but you may still be eligible even if you have not been here all that time.

British dual nationals may apply but must be prepared to renounce their other nationality, if required, before joining SIS.

If you are interested in applying, but are not sure whether you meet our nationality and residency criteria, we suggest that you apply anyway. We will let you know whether we can take your application forward.

You will have to pass a medical and drugs test

We will give you an in-depth medical, and you’ll be tested for drugs. If you have used Class A drugs within the last 12 months, and Class B/C drugs in the last six months, your application will not be taken forward.

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The nature of our work is such that our people have access to a wide amount of sensitive information. Should this information get into the wrong hands, then national security would be put at risk. Consequently, we owe it to both our staff and the public at large to insist on the most stringent Security Clearance procedures. You’ll undergo a process of Developed Vetting, which will include an in-depth look into your life – including your finances. It’s essential not to conceal or lie about any of the vetting criteria, or your application will not be taken forward. The process can take up to three months – but if you have nothing to conceal, you have nothing to be afraid of.

PLEASE BE AWARE THAT IN ORDER TO OBTAIN DEVELOPED VETTING SECURITY CLEARANCE, YOU MUST BE OVER THE AGE OF 21 AT THE TIME OF ENTRY.

We are unable to accept your application if you:

Have used Class A drugs (for example, Ecstasy, Cocaine etc) in the last 12 months.

Have used Class B/C drugs (for example, Amphetamines, Cannabis etc) in the last 6 months.

Are currently being treated for an addiction (for example to alcohol or gambling) or have received such treatment in the last 12 months.

Have ever suffered from manic depression or schizophrenia.

Are currently bankrupt or the subject of an Individual Voluntary Agreement (IVA).

Our priority is to attract, select and retain the most talented individuals who are motivated to do a great job for SIS. Our people represent a diverse range of skills and abilities in a broad spectrum of roles in different teams in a global context.

We strive to create an environment where everyone’s talents are nurtured by offering, irrespective of background or skills, the opportunity for continuous development and progression based on merit. In adopting this approach, we work hard to ensure we recognise the different needs, motivations and ambitions of the people who make up our teams and look to ensure everyone feels recognised and rewarded for the work they deliver.

We need people with a host of different skills, backgrounds and experience to work both in the UK and overseas. However, there are some qualities that all our people share; complete integrity, team spirit and a ‘can-do’ attitude. Each and every one of them is also committed to helping protect the UK from threats ranging from terrorism to regional instability.

The roles for which we regularly recruit fall into the following areas:

Administrators – Assisting with the essential daily running of the organisation, through a broad range of administrative tasks.

Technology – Ensuring we have outstanding – and secure – IT systems to communicate internationally.

The origins of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) are to be found in the Foreign Section of the Secret Service Bureau, established by the Committee of Imperial Defence in October 1909. The Secret Service Bureau was soon abbreviated to ‘Secret Service’, ‘SS Bureau’ or even ‘SS’. The first head of the Foreign Section, Captain Sir Mansfield Cumming RN, signed himself ‘MC’ or ‘C’ in green ink. Thus began the long tradition of the head of the Service adopting the initial ‘C’ as his symbol.

Cumming sought to ensure that the Foreign Section of the Secret Service Bureau maintained a degree of autonomy but the War Office, in particular, managed to exercise extensive control over his actions. The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 brought a need for even closer cooperation with military intelligence organisations within the War Office. The most significant manifestation of this was the virtual integration of the Foreign Section within the Military Intelligence Directorate. Thus, for much of the war, Cumming’s organisation was known as MI1(c). This arrangement did not sit well with Cumming who regretted this diminution of his independence. As a naval officer he was less than pleased at appearing under the auspices of the War Office.

The debate over the future structure of British Intelligence continued at length after the end of hostilities but Cumming managed to engineer the return of the Service to Foreign Office control. At this time the organisation was known in Whitehall by a variety of titles including the ‘Foreign Intelligence Service’, the ‘Secret Service’, ‘MI1(c)’, the ‘Special Intelligence Service’ and even ‘C’s organisation’. Around 1920, it began increasingly to be referred to as the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), a title that it has continued to use to the present day and which was enshrined in statute in the Intelligence Services Act 1994.

‘MI6’ has become an almost interchangeable title for SIS, at least in the minds of those outside the Service. The origins of the use of this other title are to be found in the late 1930s when it was adopted as a flag of convenience for SIS. It was used extensively during the Second World War, especially if an organisational link needed to be made with MI5 (the Security Service). Although ‘MI6’ fell into official disuse years ago, many writers and journalists continue to use it to describe SIS.

The Security Service (MI5) is responsible for protecting the United Kingdom against threats to national security. This website provides information about the Security Service, the threats it counters, links to sources of security advice and details of careers with the Service.

Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) has published a review of intelligence concerning the London terrorist attacks of 7 July 2005. The review was carried out as part of a lengthy and detailed investigation by the ISC to determine whether the attacks could have been prevented in the light of what was known at the time and what should have been known. Drawing on sensitive intelligence gathered by the Security Service, the police and other UK agencies, the ISC concludes: we cannot criticise the judgements made by MI5 and the police based on the information that they had and their priorities at the time.

Two of the 7/7 attackers appeared on the fringes of another terrorist plot, Operation CREVICE, that the Security Service was investigating in 2004, but were not identified or investigated in detail by the Service or the police as they appeared to be petty fraudsters, not involved in attack planning. The ISC has found that, prior to the attacks, there was no reason to believe that the two – Mohammed Siddique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer – were involved in a plot to carry out terrorist attacks. Immediately following the CREVICE arrests, further work was undertaken on leads emerging from the CREVICE investigation. However, shortly after this, all of the Service’s resources had to be fully committed to other threat to life investigations.

The ISC reports that, since the attacks, the UK’s intelligence agencies and the police have implemented certain changes in the way that they operate. The Government has also increased the resources directed towards national security work. While it is impossible to guarantee that there will be no repeat of the 7/7 attacks, the ISC concludes that the chances of detecting a similar plot have been improved.
The ISC has also tackled a number of allegations about the handling of 7/7-related intelligence material. It has found that there is no evidence to support claims of overlooked clues and ignored warnings.

* Could 7/7 Have Been Prevented? Review of the Intelligence on the London Terrorist Attacks on 7 July 2005
(Intelligence and Security Committee, 12 May 2009. Adobe PDF, 1.4 Mb)

* The 7 July 2005 bombings and the Security Service
A summary of MI5’s role in the investigations prior to the 7/7 bombings.

* The 7/7 bombings: rumours and reality
Answers to various allegations, rumours and claims about the 7/7 bombings.

If your information relates to an imminent threat to life or property, please contact the police on 999 or the police Anti-terrorist Hotline on 0800 789 321

We are responsible for protecting against threats to national security, such as terrorism. If you know something about a threat to national security, we want to hear from you.

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GCHQ is one of the three UK Intelligence Agencies and a part of the UK’s National Intelligence Machinery. GCHQ works in partnership with the Security Service (also known as MI5) and the Secret Intelligence Service (also known as MI6) to protect the UK’s national security interests.

The Agencies act within the law. All their operations are conducted within a framework of legislation that defines their roles and activities. In summary, their operations must relate to national security, the prevention or detection of serious crime, or the UK’s economic well-being.

Much greater detail on the UK’s National Intelligence Machinery, the roles of the Agencies, legislation, accountability and funding can be found at http://www.intelligence.gov.uk. See also the MI5 and MI6 websites.
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GCHQ’s headquarters are in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. We have two much smaller sites in Cornwall and Yorkshire but most of the c5500 staff work at the impressive state of the art building at Benhall in Cheltenham. The building, often referred to locally as the Doughnut, is a dramatic landmark at the entrance to the spa town of Cheltenham.

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Aerial view of Benhall

A second smaller site, occupied by some of our staff, is located in the Oakley area of Cheltenham.
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A second smaller site, occupied by some of our staff, is located in the Oakley area of Cheltenham.

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Aerial view of Benhall
GCHQ’s headquarters are in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. We have two much smaller sites in Cornwall and Yorkshire but most of the c5500 staff work at the impressive state of the art building at Benhall in Cheltenham. The building, often referred to locally as the Doughnut, is a dramatic landmark at the entrance to the spa town of Cheltenham.

GCHQ purchases a wide range of goods and services. Wherever possible these are procured from pre-existing GCHQ Framework Arrangements and other approved Framework Arrangements such as the Office of Government Commerce Catalist Framework. These Framework Arrangements meet a high proportion of GCHQ’s purchasing needs.

Where GCHQ is to purchase goods and services by placing a new separate contract and where security considerations allow it is our intention to advertise such purchases on our procurement opportunities page.

All suppliers invited to tender for advertised requirements will need to undergo stringent financial and capability checks and, in some instances if successful, be able to provide staff with appropriate security clearances and operate from secure premises.
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In line with Government Policy GCHQ aspires to procure in a way that achieves value for money on a whole life basis in terms of generating benefits not only to the organisation, but also to society and the economy, whilst minimising damage to the environment.

If you would like to send information about products or services which you think might be of interest to GCHQ please submit to: procurementanswers@gchq.gsi.gov.uk Note that individual responses will not be given. If a future match between your services and our requirements arises then we may contact you for further details.

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What is CESG?

CESG is the Information Assurance (IA) arm of GCHQ and is the Government’s National Technical Authority for IA responsible for enabling secure and trusted knowledge sharing, which helps its customers achieve their aims.

CESG aims to protect and promote the vital interests of the UK by providing advice and assistance on the security of communications and electronic data. Its objective is to protect the communications and information of the government and other parts of the national information infrastructure, by developing technical means of countering assessed threats.

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What is Information Assurance?

IA is about enabling the secure sharing and use of knowledge. It involves ensuring the:

Two chairs and two pens await the representatives from Russia and Ukraine with the flags from each nation in the background
Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: This is the second time Russia and Ukraine have come to the negotiating table over gas
International lenders have met in Brussels in an attempt to come up with a rescue plan to help Ukraine to pay its upcoming gas bill, avoiding a gas cut off such as the one that left millions in the cold last winter.

Representatives from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development are meeting in Brussels with the vice presidents of Russian gas giant Gazprom and Ukraine’s gas monopoly Naftogaz to discuss how to best come up with enough money for Ukraine to pay its upcoming gas bill.
The talks, hosted by the European Commission, are taking place less than a week before Kiev will be expected to hand over three billion euros ($4.2 billion) to Russia for gas that it has started to store for the coming winter.

A dispute over payment earlier this year led to Russia shutting off gas supplies to Ukraine, which affected not only citizens there, but also those living in parts of the European Union which depend on gas coming from pipelines running through Ukraine.

A quarter of all the natural gas burned within the EU comes from Russia, with 80 percent of that flowing through Ukraine, mostly to the south-eastern corner of the continent.

Transparency an issue

A pipe waiting to take its place in the Baltic Pipeline between Russia and GermanyBildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Germany is betting on a pipeline across the Baltic Sea to save itself from these disputes in the future

Weighed down by the global financial crisis, Kiev claims it won’t be able to come up with the money in time to buy the roughly 20 billion cubic meters of natural gas that it wants, and that has incited the EU to call on the international community to give Ukraine a short term loan.

However, many organizations, including the IMF, aren’t convinced that Naftogaz is in a position to receive funding. Ceyla Pazarbasioglu, head of the IMF delegation, told the Reuters news agency that they were demanding that the state-owned gas giant undergo some serious reorganization, adding that the company needed to become more transparent and clean up its finances.

The multibillion euro loan would be part of the IMF’s $16.4 billion program to help out nations hit hard by the economic crisis.

According to a report, former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer has signed a six-digit contract to promote the planned European Nabucco gas pipeline project. (26.06.2009)
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DW-WORLD: Steinmeier calls on Ukraine to avoid another gas crisis

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has warned of new complications in the Russian-Ukrainian gas conflict, which could result in further reductions in energy supplies to Europe. (17.06.2009)
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DW-WORLD: Germany Confirms Resumption of Russian Gas Supplies

After an almost three-week dispute between Russia and Ukraine over gas supplies came to an end at the weekend, Germany announced on Wednesday that the country was once again receiving Russian gas. (21.01.2009)

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Feedback: Should Ukraine receive the loan? Send us an e-mail. Please include your name and country in your reply.

The brain transforms sensory messages into conscious perceptions almost instantly Chaotic, collective activity involving millions of neurons seems essential for such rapid recognition.
From: February 1991 Scientific American, Vol 264, (2) Pgs. 78-85.
WALTER J. FREEMAN is professor of Neurobiology at the University of California, Berkeley. He received an M.D. from Yale University in 1954 and completed postdoctoral training in neurophysiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, in l959, the year he joined the Berkeley faculty. When a person glimpses the face of a famous actor, sniffs a favorite food or hears the voice of a friend, recognition is instant. Within a fraction of a second after the eyes, nose, ears, tongue or skin is stimulated, one knows the object is familiar and whether it is desirable or dangerous. How does such recognition, which psychologists call preattentive perception, happen so accurately and quickly, even when the stimuli are complex and the context in which they arise varies?

Much is known about the way the cerebral cortex, the outer rind of the brain, initially analyzes sensory messages. Yet investigations are only now beginning to suggest how the brain moves beyond the mere extraction of features-how it combines sensory messages with past experience and with expectation to identify both the stimulus and its particular meaning to the individual.

My own group’s studies, carried out over more than 30 years at the University of California at Berkeley, suggest that perception cannot be understood solely by examining properties of individual neurons, a microscopic approach that currently dominates neuroscience research. We have found that perception depends on the simultaneous, cooperative activity of millions of neurons spread throughout expanses of the cortex. Such global activity can be identified, measured and explained only if one adopts a macroscopic view alongside the microscopic one.

There is an analogy to this approach in music. To grasp the beauty in a choral piece, it is not enough to listen to the individual singers sequentially. One must hear the performers together, as they modulate their voices and timing in response to one another.

Our studies have led us as well to the discovery in the brain of chaos- complex behavior that seems random but actually has some hidden order. The chaos is evident in the tendency of vast collections of neurons to shift abruptly and simultaneously from one complex activity pattern to another in response to the smallest of inputs.
This changeability is a prime characteristic of many chaotic systems. It is not harmful in the brain. In fact, we propose it is the very property that makes perception possible. We also speculate that chaos underlies the ability of the brain to respond flexibly to the outside world and to generate novel activity patterns, including those that are experienced as fresh ideas.

An understanding of perception must be based on knowledge of the properties of the neurons that enact it. My colleagues and I have concentrated in many of our studies on neurons of the olfactory system.

For years it has been known that when an animal or a person sniffs an odorant, molecules carrying the scent are captured by a few of the immense number of receptor neurons in the nasal passages; the receptors are somewhat specialized in the kinds of odorants to which they respond. Cells that become excited fire action potentials, or pulses, which propagate through projections called axons to a part of the cortex known as the olfactory bulb. The number of activated receptors indicates the intensity of the stimulus, and their location in the nose conveys the nature of the scent. That is, each scent is expressed by a spatial pattern of receptor activity, which in turn is transmitted to the bulb.

The bulb analyzes each input pattern and then synthesizes its own message, which it transmits via axons to another part of the olfactory system, the olfactory cortex. From there, new signals are sent to many parts of the brain-not the least of which is an area called the entorhinal cortex, where the signals are combined with those from other sensory systems. The result is a meaning-laden perception, a gestalt, that is unique to each individual. For a dog, the recognition of the scent of a fox may carry the memory of food and expectation of a meal. For a rabbit, the same scent may arouse memories of chase and fear of attack.

Such knowledge has provided a valuable starting point for more detailed study of olfaction. But it leaves two important issues unresolved. The first is the classic problem of separating foreground from background: How does the brain distinguish one scent from all others that accompany it?

PHASE PORTRAITS made from electroencephalograms (EEGs)
generated by a computer model of the brain reflect the overall activity of
the olfactory system at rest (above) and during perception of a familiar
scent (right). Resemblance of the portraits to irregularly shaped, but still
structured, coils of wire reveals that brain activity in both conditions is
chaotic: complex but having some underlying order. The more circular
shape of the right-hand image, together with its greater segregation of
color, indicates that olfactory EEGs are more ordered-more nearly
periodic-during perception than during rest.

Also, how does the brain achieve what is called generalization-over- equivalent receptors? Because of turbulence in nasal air flow, only a few of the many receptors that are sensitive to an odorant are excited during a sniff, and the selection varies unpredictably from one sniff to the next. How does the brain recognize that signals from different collections of receptors all refer to the same stimulus? Our investigations begin to suggest answers to both problems.

Many of our insights were derived from intensive studies of the olfactory bulb. Those experiments show clearly that every neuron in the bulb participates in generating each olfactory perception. In other words, the salient information about the stimulus is carried in some distinctive pattern of bulbwide activity, not in a small subset of feature-detecting neurons that are excited only by, say, foxlike scents.

Moreover, although this collective neural activity reflects the odorant, the activity itself is not determined solely by the stimulus. Bulbar functioning is self-organized, very much controlled by internal factors, including the sensitivity of the neurons to input.

The experiments uncovering the collective activity were conceptually simple. By applying standard reinforcement techniques, we trained animals, often rabbits, to recognize several different odorants and to behave in particular ways when they did-for instance, to lick or chew in expectation of food or water. Before training was started, we attached 60 to 64 electrodes 0.5 millimeter apart in a gridlike array to a large part of the bulbar surface.

During training and thereafter, the array enabled us to collect sets of 60 to 64 simultaneously recorded electroencephalogram (EEG) tracings as the animals breathed in and out, sometimes sniffing familiar scents and sometimes not. Each tracing reflects the mean excitatory state of local pools of neurons lying in a well-defined layer immediately beneath the electrodes. Rises in the wavelike tracings indicate increasing excitement; dips represent diminished excitement caused by inhibition.

The EEGs should not be confused with recordings of impulses fired by individual axons or by pools of neurons, although each EEG is related to the firing pattern of neurons in a neighborhood of the cerebral cortex. The tracings detect essentially the same information that neurons assess when they decide whether or not to fire impulses, but an EEG records that information for thousands of cells at once.

To better understand exactly what the EEG shows, it helps to know some of the details of how cortical neurons operate. Such cells continuously receive pulses-usually at projections known as dendrites-from thousands of other neurons. The pulses are conveyed at specialized junctions called synapses. Certain incoming pulses generate excitatory waves of electric current in the recipients; others generate inhibitory waves [see top illustration on page 82]. These currents- dendritic currents -are fed through the cell body (which contains the nucleus) to a region called the trigger zone, at the start of the axon.

There the currents cross the cell membrane into the extracellular space. As they do, the cell calculates the overall strength of the currents (reflected in changes in voltage across the membrane), essentially by adding excitatory currents and subtracting inhibitory ones. If the sum is above a threshold level of excitation, the neuron fires.

The mechanism producing each EEG tracing similarly sums the currents initiated at the dendrites, but it taps the currents after they leave the cell. The tracings reflect the excitatory state of groups of neurons rather than of individual ones, because the extracellular space is traversed by currents from thousands of cells. BASIC FLOW OF OLFACTORY INFORMATION IN THE BRAIN In our experiments the EEG tracings from the electrodes in an array are as unpredictable and irregular as freehand scrawls. Yet they manifest perceptual information.

In living individuals, EEGs always oscillate, or rise and fall, to some extent, but the oscillations are usually quite irregular. When an animal inhales a familiar scent, what we call a burst can be seen in each EEG tracing. All the waves from the array of electrodes suddenly become more regular, or ordered, for a few cycles-until the animal exhales. The waves often have a higher amplitude (height) and frequency than they do at other times.

The burst waves are often called 40 hertz waves, meaning that they oscillate at about 40 cycles per second. Because the frequency can actually range from 20 to 90 hertz, I prefer to call them gamma waves, in analogy with a range of high-frequency X rays.

The fact that the bursts represent cooperative, interactive activity is not immediately clear in the EEG plots, because the burst segments differ in shape from tracing to tracing in a simultaneously recorded set. Nevertheless, by taxing our computers, we find we are able to tease out evidence of collective behavior from the complex background. In each set of burst recordings, we can identify a common waveform, or carrier wave: a shared pattern of rises and falls that is embedded in each tracing. The average amplitude is not identical across the set-some versions of the carrier wave are shallow, and others are deep. But all of them curve up and down nearly in synchrony. The common behavior makes up between one quarter and three quarters of the total activity of the neurons giving rise to each trace.

Curiously, it is not the shape of the carrier wave that reveals the identity of an odor. Indeed, the wave changes every time an animal inhales, even when the same odorant is repeatedly sniffed. The identity of an odorant is reliably discernible only in the bulbwide spatial pattern of the carrier- wave amplitude [see top illustration on page 84].

Amplitude patterns become especially clear when we plot the average amplitude of the individual versions of the carrier wave on a grid representing the surface of the bulb. The resulting maps resemble contour diagrams that indicate the elevations of mountains and valleys. As long as we do not alter the animals’ training, the same map emerges every time an animal sniffs a particular odorant, even though the carrier wave differs with each sniff.

These maps have helped demonstrate not only that perception requires global bulbwide activity but also that the bulb participates in assigning meaning to stimuli. The amplitude map representing a given odorant changes strikingly when we alter the reinforcement associated with that scent. If the bulb did not bring experience to bear on perception, the map would remain constant even after the conditioned association had been changed. NEURONS OF THE OLFACTORY SYSTEM share information through a rich web of synapses, junctions where signals flow from neuron to neuron. Usually signals pass from projections called axons to projections called dendrites, but sometimes they pass from dendrite to dendrite or axon to axon. The widespread sharing leads to collective activity. In this highly schematic diagram, red shading signifies that a neuron is exciting another cell, black shading that a neuron is inhibiting another. We believe that something we call the nerve cell assembly is both a crucial repository of past associations and an essential participant in the formation of the collective bulbar burst. The hypothetical assembly consists of neurons that have simultaneously been excited by other neurons during learning.

More than 20 years ago my colleagues and I discovered that when animals are trained by reinforcement techniques to discriminate olfactory stimuli, certain synapses that connect neurons within the bulb and within the olfactory cortex become selectively strengthened during the training. That is, the sensitivity of the postsynaptic cells to excitatory input-a property known as gain-is increased at the synapse, so that an input generates a greater dendritic current than it would have generated in the absence of special training. Technically, gain is the ratio of output to input-here, the net strength of the dendritic currents to the number of incoming pulses. The strengthening occurs not in the synapse between an input axon (such as a receptor from the nose) and the neuron it excites (such as a bulbar neuron) but in the synapse between connected neurons that are simultaneously excited by input neurons during learning. Neurons in the bulb and in the olfactory cortex are connected to many others in those regions. EEG WAVES reflect the mean excitation of pools of neurons. Excitatory inputs at synapses generate electric currents that flow in closed loops within the recipient neuron toward its axon, across the cell membrane into the extracellular space and, in that space, back to the synapse (red arrows). Inhibitory inputs generate loops moving in the opposite direction ( black arrows). In cells the trigger zone adds current strengths (reflected in changes in voltage across the membrane), and it fires impulses if the sum is sufficiently positive. Electrodes on the brain tap those same currents after they leave the cell. The resulting EEGs indicate the excitation of whole groups of cells, not individuals, because the extracellular avenues from which the EEGs arise carry currents contributed by thousands of cells.
Such strengthening is predicted by the widely accepted Hebb rule, which holds that synapses between neurons that fire together become stronger, as long as the synchronous firing is accompanied by a reward. (The strengthening is now known to involve modulator chemicals that the brain stem releases into the bulb and cortex during reinforcement.) We infer from our data that a nerve cell assembly, consisting of neurons joined by Hebbian synapses, forms for a particular scent as an individual is reinforced for learning to identify that odorant. Thereafter, when any subset of neurons in the assembly receives the familiar input, the entire assembly can rapidly become stimulated, as excitatory signals speed across the favored Hebbian synapses. The assembly, in turn, directs the rest of the bulb into a distinct pattern of activity.

If we are correct, the existence of a nerve cell assembly would help explain both the foreground-background problem and generalization-over- equivalent receptors. In the first instance, the assembly would confer frontrunner status on stimuli that experience, stored in the Hebbian synapses has made important to the individual. In the second instance, the assembly would ensure that information from any subset of receptors, regardless of where in the nose they were located, would spread immediately over the entire assembly and from there to the rest of the bulb. SIMULTANEOUS RECORDINGS from the olfactory bulb (a) and front (b) and rear (c) parts of a cat’s olfactory cortex show low-frequency waves interrupted by bursts -high-amplitude, high-frequency oscillations that are generated when odors are perceived. The average amplitude of a burst is some 100 microvolts. Each lasts a fraction of a second, for the interval between inhalation and exhalation. As important as the nerve cell assembly is to perception, it does not by itself generate bulbwide bursts of collective activity. For a burst to occur in response to some odorant, the neurons of the assembly and the bulb as a whole must first be primed to respond strongly to input.

Two important processes complement the priming accomplished by the development of Hebbian synapses. Both processes affect the gain, doing so by altering the sensitivity of the trigger zones, not the synapses. Here the gain is the ratio of the number of pulses fired (output) to the net dendritic current (input). The total gain is the product of the gain at the synapses and trigger zones.

One primer is general arousal. Our experiments show that the gain in neuronal collectives increases in the bulb and olfactory cortex when an animal is hungry, thirsty, sexually aroused or threatened [see illustration on page 85]. Such priming seems to be accomplished by axons from elsewhere in the brain that release modulatory chemicals (other than those involved in forming Hebbian synapses).

The other primer is input itself. When cortical neurons are excited, their output increases. Each new input they receive while they are still excited raises their output markedly, indicating that their gain has been increased by the input. This increase occurs over a particular range of input. If the net input is strongly inhibitory, no pulses are fired. Above some very high level of excitatory input, neurons fire at their maximal rate and cannot do more, even if the input is increased. In the wide range between, however, pulse output increases along a sigmoid (S-shaped) curve. The steepness, or slope, of the curve reflects the gain.

The discovery of an increase in gain with excitation is particularly noteworthy because most neural network models assume neurons are at maximum gain when they are at rest. Both excitation and inhibition are generally assumed to decrease gain, so that the networks constantly maintain stability. Such assumptions are inappropriate for the brain because they do not allow networks to generate explosive changes. Hence, it seems that information from odorants is fed by a small number of receptors to a still smaller number of cells in the bulb. If the odorant is familiar and the bulb has been primed by arousal, the information spreads like a flash fire through the nerve cell assembly. First, excitatory input to one part of the assembly during a sniff excites the other parts, via the Hebbian synapses. Then those parts reexcite the first, increasing the gain, and so forth, so that the input rapidly ignites an explosion of collective activity throughout the assembly. The activity of the assembly, in turn, spreads to the entire bulb, igniting a full-blown burst.

The bulb then sends a consensus statement simultaneously along parallel axons to the olfactory cortex. What must next be made clear is how that cortical area distinguishes the consensus statement from the background of other stimuli impinging on it from the bulb and elsewhere. WHY EEG WAVES OSCILLATE
Alternating rises and falls in amplitude stem from negative-feedback circuits that are established by the interaction of pools of excitatory and inhibitory neurons. When the pools have been sensitized to input, even a small input can trigger. A burst of high-amplitude oscillation. The diagrams represent neuronal activity at the end of each quarter cycle. Dark shading signifies great excitement; lighter shading signifies less excitement.
The answer undoubtedly has to do with the wiring joining the bulb to the cortex. The bulb generates trains of impulses that run simultaneously along the parallel axons leading from the bulb to the cortex. Each axon branches extensively and transmits pulses to many thousands of neurons across the olfactory cortex, and each cortical target cell receives input from thousands of bulbar cells.

The carrier activity of the incoming lines, which is synchronized by cooperation, probably stands out for the simple reason that such signals add together- nonsynchronous inputs, which are not at the carrier frequency and phase, effectively cancel one another. Thus, every recipient neuron in the olfactory cortex picks up a share of the cooperative bulbar signal and transmits the summed signals to thousands of its neighbors simultaneously.

In response, the massively connected neurons of the cortex, which have formed their own nerve cell assemblies, promptly generate their own collective burst, albeit one having a carrier wave and a spatial amplitude pattern that differ from those in the bulb. In essence, the transmission pathway for the global pattern in the bulb launders the bulbar message; it removes noise, so that only the collective signal affects the olfactory cortex significantly. Just as a burst in the bulb guarantees the delivery of a coherent message to the cortex, so presumably does the global burst in the cortex enable outgoing messages from that region to stand above the din when they reach other regions of the brain.

There are many reasons why we believe the activity of the brain both during and between bursts is chaotic, not merely random. But before I delve into those reasons, let me clarify further what is meant by chaos. At the risk of oversimplification, I sometimes like to suggest the difference between chaos and randomness by comparing the behavior of commuters dashing through a train station at rush hour with the behavior of a large, terrified crowd. The activity of the commuters resembles chaos in that although an observer unfamiliar with train stations might think people were running every which way without reason, order does underlie the surface complexity: everyone is hurrying to catch a specific train. The traffic flow could rapidly be changed simply by announcing a track change. In contrast, mass hysteria is random. No simple announcement would make a large mob become cooperative.

One of the most convincing early clues to the presence of chaos was an aperiodic (nonrepeating) common carrier wave everywhere in the bulb not only during bursts but also between bursts-even when there was no extrabulbar stimulus driving that collective activity. The lack of external driving meant the activity was self-generated by the bulb. Such self- organization is a characteristic of chaotic systems [see Chaos, by James B. Crutchfield, J. Doyne Farmer, Norman H. Packard and Robert S. Shawl SCENTIFIC AMERICAN, December 1986].

Another clue was the apparent ability of neural collectives in the bulb and cortex to jump globally and almost instantly from a nonburst to a burst state and then back again. Rapid state changes are called phase transitions by physicists and bifurcations by mathematicians. Whatever they are called, dramatic changes in response to weak input are, it will be recalled, another feature of chaotic systems. Bifurcation is significantly harder to control in random systems.

We gained more evidence for chaos by developing computer models of the olfactory system as a whole: the bulb, the cortex, the connections between them and the input to both areas from outside the system. We simulated the activity of the system by solving sets of ordinary differential equations that describe the dynamics of local pools of neurons.

First we demonstrated that the model did in fact represent the olfactory system accurately. With no more than a single pulse (equivalent to excitation of a few receptors) to start the system, the model sustained activity that closely resembled aperiodic olfactory EEGs.

After we trained the model to recognize specific odorants, the bulbar segment generated bursts in response to the selected inputs, and the embedded common carrier waves yielded distinct and consistent amplitude maps. Moreover, whenever we added a new odorant to the perceptual repertoire of our hypothetical subject, an identifying global amplitude map was created. At the same time, the other maps changed-as they should, of course, in a true associative memory system. We had earlier found such changes in test animals after they were trained to recognize stimuli beyond the ones they had learned initially.
COMMON CARRIER WAVE emerged from 60 EEGs recorded information is contained in the spatial pattern of amplitude simultaneously from the olfactory cortex of a rabbit as it recognized a scent (left). The wave is nearly the same in each recording, except that the amplitude varies. The shape of the carrier wave does not indicate the identity of the scent. That information is contained in the spatial pattern of amplitude across the cortex, which can be displayed as a contour plot(right), much like the plots of elevations in topographic maps. The colored contours represent the highest amplitude; successive contours represent the lower amplitudes. Our model yielded additional evidence for chaos when we coaxed it to produce mock EEGs of extended bursts and of interburst activity in the intervals between bursts. Because the artificial EEGs persisted longer than EEGs normally do, we were able to plot what are called phase portraits of the predicted behavior of the olfactory system, both during and between bursts. The portraits can show at a glance whether the dynamics may be chaotic.

The details of how such portraits are made and why they are a valid reflection of global activity in the olfactory system are too complex to discuss at length. Nevertheless, for those readers familiar with phase portraits, I should note that we plotted the portraits in a three- dimensional grid and added color to display a fourth dimension. Each axis represented EEG amplitude from some part of the olfactory system, such as the bulb or a subsection of the olfactory cortex. A range of colors from red to blue represented high to low amplitude from a fourth part of the system.

We plotted as a point one set of three amplitudes, measured at a given moment. Next we plotted another point from the set, representing a thousandth of a second later, and connected the two points with a colored line. Then we plotted a third point, and so on. We rotated the final image in space to find the most informative point of view.

CONTOUR PLOT at the left emerged consistently from bulbar EEG’s of a rabbit that had been conditioned to associated the scent of sawdust with a particular reinforcement. After the animal learned to recognize the smell of banana (middle), however, reexposure to sawdust led to the emergence of a new sawdust plot (right). The change shows that bulbar activity is dominated more by experience than by stimuli; otherwise, sawdust would always give rise to the same plot. The pictures supported the possibility of chaos, because the images resembled loose coils of wire having different shapes and color distributions. If the model olfactory system had behaved randomly, there would be no coherent shapes, just dots spread everywhere, like snow on a television set. If, on the other hand, the system was predictable in detail, the shapes would be simpler; they might resemble a spiral, a folded circle or a torus (a doughnut).

The shapes we found represent chaotic attractors. Each attractor is the behavior the system settles into when it is held under the influence of a particular input, such as a familiar odorant. The images suggest that an act of perception consists of an explosive leap of the dynamic system from the basin of one chaotic attractor to another; the basin of an attractor is the set of initial conditions from which the system goes into a particular behavior. The bottom of a bowl would be a basin of attraction for a ball placed anywhere along the sides of the bowl. In our experiments, the basin for each attractor would be defined by the receptor neurons that were activated during training to form the nerve cell assembly.
We think the olfactory bulb and cortex maintain many chaotic attractors, one for each odorant an animal or human being can discriminate. Whenever an odorant becomes meaningful in some way, another attractor is added, and all the others undergo slight modification. SIGMOID CURVES show the relation between input (wave density) and output (pulse density) at trigger zones in populations of neurons. (The plots are not valid for individual neurons.) The rising steepness associated with increased arousal indicates that sensitivity to input-or gain (the ratio of output to input, or the slope)-rises with arousal. In each case, gain also increases as neurons that are already excited (those at and to the right of the circles) receive more stimulation. This input-dependent increase in gain is essential to the formation of bursts
Identification of chaos does not automatically reveal its source. We suspect chaos in the brain arises when two or more areas of the brain, such as the bulb and the olfactory cortex, meet at least two conditions: they excite one another strongly enough to prevent any single part from settling down, and, at the same time, they are unable to agree on a common frequency of oscillation. Competition between the parts would increase the sensitivity and instability of the system contributing to chaos. Part of the evidence for the importance of interaction between the bulb and the cortex is that disconnection of the two regions makes chaos disappear; both parts become abnormally stable and quiet.

Modulatory chemicals released into the system from elsewhere in the brain also increase sensitivity to input, both by participating in the formation of the Hebbian synapses in nerve cell assemblies and by enhancing arousal. Because various factors maintain great sensitivity, a very small signal-a whiff, a whisper, a glimpse-can trigger a massive, collective state change.

Conceivably, the chaos we have observed is simply an inevitable by- product of the brain’s complexity, including its myriad connections. Yet our evidence suggests that the controlled chaos of the brain is more than an accidental by-product. Indeed, it may be the chief property that makes the brain different from an artificial-intelligence machine.

One profound advantage chaos may confer on the brain is that chaotic systems continually produce novel activity patterns. We propose that such patterns are crucial to the development of nerve cell assemblies that differ from established assemblies. More generally, the ability to create activity patterns I may underlie the brain’s ability to generate insight and the trials of trial and-error problem solving.

We have found widespread, apparently chaotic behavior in other parts of the brain. That finding does not necessarily imply that other sensory systems operate as the olfactory system does. But we think they do. Indeed, we and other investigators have documented gamma bursts across large cortical regions involved in recognizing visual images. As in the olfactory system, familiar visual stimuli are associated with specific amplitude maps of common carrier waves. I predict that when people examine drawings in which foreground and background are ambiguous, so that perception alternates between two images, the amplitude maps will be found to alternate as well.

I begin to envision the general dynamics of perception. The brain seeks information, mainly by directing an individual to look, listen and sniff. The search results from self-organizing activity in the limbic system (a part of the brain that includes the entorhinal cortex and is thought to be involved in emotion and memory), which funnels a search command to the motor systems. As the motor command is transmitted, the limbic system issues what is called a reafference message, alerting all the sensory systems to prepare to respond to new information.

And respond they do, with every neuron in a given region participating in a collective activity-a burst. Synchronous activity in each system is then transmitted back to the limbic system, where it combines with similarly generated output from other sensory systems to form a gestalt. Then, within a fraction of a second, another search for information is demanded, and the sensory systems are prepared again by reafference.

Consciousness may well be the subjective experience of this recursive process of motor command, reafference and perception. If so, it enables the brain to plan and prepare for each subsequent action on the basis of past action, sensory input and perceptual synthesis. In short, an act of perception is not the copying of an incoming stimulus. It is a step in a trajectory by which brains grow, reorganize themselves and reach into their environment to change it to their own advantage. The poet William Blake wrote: If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. Such cleansing would not be desirable. Without the protection of the doors of perception-that is, without the self-controlled chaotic activity of the cortex, from which perceptions spring-people and animals would be overwhelmed by eternity. FURTHER READING
MASS ACTION IN THE NERVOUS SYSTEM: EXAMINATION OF THE NEUROPHYSIOLOGICAL BASIS OF ADAPTIVE BEHAVIOR THROUGH THE EEG. Walter J. Freeman. Academic Press, 1975.
How BRAINS MAKE CHAOS IN ORDER TO MAKE SENSE OF THE WORLD. Christine A. Skarda and Walter J. Freeman in behavioral and Brain Sciences, Vol. 10 No. 2, pages 161-195; June 1987.
THE SYNAPTIC ORGANIZATION OF THE BRAIN. Third edition. Gordon M. Shepherd. Oxford University Press, 1990.
SYNERGETICS OF COGNITION: PROCEEDINGS OF THE INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM AT SCHLOSS ELMAU, BAVARIA, JUNE 4-8, 1989. Edited by H. Haken and M. Stadler. Springer-Verlag, 1990.
Copyright 1991: Walter J. Freeman

Fig9.gif
SIGMOID CURVES show the relation between input (wave density) and output (pulse density) at trigger zones in populations of neurons. (The plots are not valid for individual neurons.) The rising steepness associated with increased arousal indicates that sensitivity to input-or gain (the ratio of output to input, or the slope)-rises with arousal. In each case, gain also increases as neurons that are already excited (those at and to the right of the circles) receive more stimulation. This input-dependent increase in gain is essential to the formation of bursts

Fig8.gif
CONTOUR PLOT at the left emerged consistently from bulbar EEG’s of a rabbit that had been conditioned to associated the scent of sawdust with a particular reinforcement. After the animal learned to recognize the smell of banana (middle), however, reexposure to sawdust led to the emergence of a new sawdust plot (right). The change shows that bulbar activity is dominated more by experience than by stimuli; otherwise, sawdust would always give rise to the same plot.

Fig7.gif
COMMON CARRIER WAVE emerged from 60 EEGs recorded information is contained in the spatial pattern of amplitude simultaneously from the olfactory cortex of a rabbit as it recognized a scent (left). The wave is nearly the same in each recording, except that the amplitude varies. The shape of the carrier wave does not indicate the identity of the scent. That information is contained in the spatial pattern of amplitude across the cortex, which can be displayed as a contour plot(right), much like the plots of elevations in topographic maps. The colored contours represent the highest amplitude; successive contours represent the lower amplitudes.

Fig6.gif
WHY EEG WAVES OSCILLATE
Alternating rises and falls in amplitude stem from negative-feedback circuits that are established by the interaction of pools of excitatory and inhibitory neurons. When the pools have been sensitized to input, even a small input can trigger. A burst of high-amplitude oscillation. The diagrams represent neuronal activity at the end of each quarter cycle. Dark shading signifies great excitement; lighter shading signifies less excitement.

Fig5.gif
SIMULTANEOUS RECORDINGS from the olfactory bulb (a) and front (b) and rear (c) parts of a cat’s olfactory cortex show low-frequency waves interrupted by bursts -high-amplitude, high-frequency oscillations that are generated when odors are perceived. The average amplitude of a burst is some 100 microvolts. Each lasts a fraction of a second, for the interval between inhalation and exhalation.

Fig4.gif
EEG WAVES reflect the mean excitation of pools of neurons. Excitatory inputs at synapses generate electric currents that flow in closed loops within the recipient neuron toward its axon, across the cell membrane into the extracellular space and, in that space, back to the synapse (red arrows). Inhibitory inputs generate loops moving in the opposite direction ( black arrows). In cells the trigger zone adds current strengths (reflected in changes in voltage across the membrane), and it fires impulses if the sum is sufficiently positive. Electrodes on the brain tap those same currents after they leave the cell. The resulting EEGs indicate the excitation of whole groups of cells, not individuals, because the extracellular avenues from which the EEGs arise carry currents contributed by thousands of cells.

Fig3.gif
NEURONS OF THE OLFACTORY SYSTEM share information through a rich web of synapses, junctions where signals flow from neuron to neuron. Usually signals pass from projections called axons to projections called dendrites, but sometimes they pass from dendrite to dendrite or axon to axon. The widespread sharing leads to collective activity. In this highly schematic diagram, red shading signifies that a neuron is exciting another cell, black shading that a neuron is inhibiting another.

Fig3B.gif

BASIC FLOW OF OLFACTORY INFORMATION IN THE BRAIN
Fig2.gif
Fig1.gif

PHASE PORTRAITS made from electroencephalograms (EEGs)
generated by a computer model of the brain reflect the overall activity of
the olfactory system at rest (above) and during perception of a familiar
scent (right). Resemblance of the portraits to irregularly shaped, but still
structured, coils of wire reveals that brain activity in both conditions is
chaotic: complex but having some underlying order. The more circular
shape of the right-hand image, together with its greater segregation of
color, indicates that olfactory EEGs are more ordered-more nearly
periodic-during perception than during rest.

Nanoparticles make self-erasing images
Materials displaying ‘self-erasing’ color images have been created by researchers, using specific nanoparticles that can assemble and disassemble themselves under different wavelengths of light. The materials are printed with ultraviolet (UV) light and erased with visible light. They are made by coating gold and silver nanoparticles with a single layer of azobenzene molecules, and then embedding the nanoparticles in thin, flexible ‘organogel’ films. When the films are exposed to UV light, the structural symmetry of the azobenzene molecules flips, and they acquire electric dipoles that make them attract. This attraction causes the nanoparticles to assemble, and thereby take on a new color. However, in an absence of UV light – or even better, in strong visible light – the particles revert to their original symmetry, and the color disappears over a period of time.

Bio Focus

Crustacean shell, polyester mixed-fiber material for nerve repair
In the clothing industry it’s common to mix natural and synthetic fibers such as cotton and polyester. Researchers have now used the same principle for biomedical applications by mixing an industrial polyester with chitosan, found in the shells of crabs and shrimp, creating a promising new material for the tiny tubes that support repair of a severed nerve, and could serve other medical uses. The hybrid fiber combines the biologically favorable qualities of the natural material with the mechanical strength of the synthetic polymer.

Double helix is an electric slide for proteins
DNA may contain the blueprint for life but it takes proteins to read the plan and build an organism. The mechanism of this vital biological process has remained a mystery but now researchers are proposing a physical model wherein individual proteins can “slide” freely along DNA strands in search of target sequences. The team envision the process involving ‘DNA-binding proteins’ swarming around the iconic double helix on account of electric attraction — proteins have a net positive charge and DNA has a net negative charge. Miraculously, these proteins can then bind to exactly the right section of the long, coiling DNA so they can carry out vital functions such as copying genetic information and translating genes into templates for protein production.

MEETINGS UPDATE

Stream of sand behaves like water
In a first-time accomplishment, researchers used high-speed photography to measure minute levels of surface tension and detect droplet formation in flows of dry granular materials. They observed falling 100-micrometer-diameter glass beads, and streaming sand, and found that forces as much as 100,000 times smaller than those that produce surface tension in ordinary liquids could cause droplet formation in granular streams and cause these dry streams to behave like an ultra-low-surface-tension liquid.

Information transmission currently require electrons or photons for transmitting information. Scientists have now demonstrated a third method of transmission: chemical reactions. Based on a flammable “infofuse,” the new system combines information technology and chemistry into a new area the researchers call infochemistry. The system transmits information in the form of coded pulses of light generated entirely by chemical reactions, without electricity. The system is self-powered, with power being generated by combustion. The power density of the system is higher than that of electrochemical batteries, and has the advantage of not discharging over time.

Pure white light emitting molecule developed
Researchers are reporting the first use of a fundamentally new approach in the quest for a pure white light emitting LED. They have development a new, simpler white LED using a single molecule that is the first to achieve stable white light emissions. The specially engineered molecule combines two light-emitting materials, one orange and one blue, which together produce white light over the entire visible range. In laboratory studies, the scientists showed that light production from an LED using the new molecule was highly efficient and had excellent color stability and reproducibility.

Energy Focus

Polymer solar cell with near-perfect internal efficiency
Researchers have developed a polymer-based solar cell with an ability not yet seen in similar cells: almost every single photon it absorbs is converted into a pair of electric-charge carriers, and every one of those pairs is collected at the cell’s electrodes. The overall efficiency of the cell is six percent, excellent for polymer-based solar cells. The cell incorporates an alternating co-polymer in bulk heterojunction composite with a fullerene derivative. The cell exhibits the best performance of any bulk heterojunction system investigated so far, according to the authors.

Nano Focus
released to a detector.

Self-assembled tetrahedral container molecule encapsulates white phosphorus
A team of researchers reveals that it has tamed one of the most hazardous chemical substances, white phosphorous. White phosphorous is also infamous for its propensity to burst into flame. For this reason it is often used in military campaigns to create smokescreens to mask movement from the enemy, as well as an incendiary in bombs, artillery and mortars. The team created a ‘container molecule’ to stabilise white phosphorous indefinitely. This renders it safe until such time as a signal agent, benzene, is applied to release it.

Tell your legislators why support of the physical sciences and science education is necessary — for national security, quality of life and a strong economy. With Materials Voice, you’ll create personalized letters addressed to your representatives on Capitol Hill — which you can then customize and send via email, or print and send via mail or fax. It’s essential that your voice be heard on science policy issues. We invite you to discover Materials Voice, and ensure that your message is heard — with resonance — on Capitol Hill.

CAREER CENTRAL

Classifieds

Partial listing from the July 2009 issue of the MRS Bulletin

Brookhaven National Laboratory
Group Leader, Center for Functional Nanomaterials

Dartmouth College
Tenure-Track Faculty Position, Thayer School of Engineering

Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH and RWTH Aachen University
Director, Institute of Solid State Research—Microstructure Research

University of Texas at Dallas
Distinguished Chairs in Nanoelectronics, Department of Materials Science and Engineering

DIVERSIONS

Did You Know?

MRS has a Diversity Statement:
The scientific and engineering communities must strive to become more inclusive, engaging all demographic groups in advancing science and technology. MRS recognizes that Diversity drives Innovation, Excellence, and New Discoveries. Although progress has been made, women and under-represented groups still remain a largely untapped resource in research and innovation. We affirm the critical role that professional societies must play at all levels of education and professional pursuits. Recent programs by many professional societies have provided benchmarking data collection, forums to discuss diversity issues in science and opportunities for professional development training. More needs to be done. The Materials Research Society therefore charges our membership and our leaders to continually engage the science and engineering enterprise, promoting greater participation from all demographic groups, proactively addressing barriers and fostering greater diversity wherever scientists and engineers are educated and employed.

Quiz
Answer to the Quiz in the previous Materials360®:
Other than the U.S., the top three countries in terms of current number of MRS members are Japan (1,259), Korea (736), and Germany (559).

Quotes of the Month

A physical theory is not an explanation. It is a system of mathematical propositions, deduced from a small number of principles, which aim…to represent as simply, as completely, and as exactly as possible a group of experimental laws.
– Pierre-Maurice-Marie Duhem, French Physicist and Mathematician

The theory of our modern technical [era] shows that nothing is as practical as theory.
– Robert J. Oppenheimer, American Physicist

Informal science is a burgeoning field that operates across a broad range of venues and envisages learning outcomes for individuals, schools, families, and society. The evidence base that describes informal science, its promise, and effects is informed by a range of disciplines and perspectives, including field-based research, visitor studies, and psychological and anthropological studies of learning. Learning Science in Informal Environments draws together disparate literatures, synthesizes the state of knowledge, and articulates a common framework for the next generation of research on learning science in informal environments across a life span. Contributors include recognized experts in a range of disciplines–research and evaluation, exhibit designers, program developers, and educators. They also have experience in a range of settings–museums, after-school programs, science and technology centers, media enterprises, aquariums, zoos, state parks, and botanical gardens. Learning Science in Informal Environments is a guide for program and exhibit designers, evaluators, staff of science-rich informal learning institutions and community-based organizations, scientists interested in educational outreach, federal science agency education staff, and K-12 science educators.

Common Chemistry™
Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), a division of the American Chemical Society, has launched Common Chemistry, a free online database containing information on 7,800 chemicals of widespread and general interest as well as all 118 elements from the periodic table. It contains CAS Registry Numbers for chemicals of widespread general public interest. Common Chemistry is helpful to non-chemists who know either a name or CAS Registry Number® of a common chemical and want to pair both pieces of information. The CAS Registry Number is the universally recognized unique identifier of chemical substances and is often found on packaging and on articles of commerce. While not a comprehensive CAS Registry Number lookup service, Common Chemistry does provide a way to quickly and easily find names or CAS Registry Numbers for chemicals of general interest.

***

Apollo 40 years on

On 20 July 1969, NASA’s Apollo programme landed a human on the Moon, less than a decade after President John F Kennedy announced the goal to the U.S. Congress. On the 40th anniversary of that milestone, Nature looks at the legacy of the Apollo missions and their influence on lunar science, as well as prospects for future manned missions that could see humans once again set foot on the Moon.

NEW PRODUCT FOCUS

Carbon Nanotube Probe Technology for AFM

Carbon Design Innovations, Inc. (C|D|I) announces the availability of two new atomic force microscope (AFM) probe types with carbon nanotube (CNT) tips. The CCHAR (carbon core high-aspect ratio) and CCHR (carbon core high resolution) CNT probes offer quantum improvements for AFM imaging, substantially improving results, reducing overall cost of operation and opening new avenues for research. Based on a patent pending process, C|D|I is able to produce CNT AFM probes that are perfectly straight and precisely aligned, allowing them to be set at desired angles to the surface. The new CNT AFM probes are compatible with all major AFM systems, giving users an easy path for improving AFM performance without making a substantial investment in new instrumentation.
[Contact: 650-697-7070 or info@cdi-nano.com]

Single Layer Graphene Oxide

CheapTubes.com can now supply true Single Layer Graphene Oxide with no metal catalyst, an average thickness of 0.7 to 1.2 nm, 100% pure, water and DMF soluble without the use of surfactants, and it can be reduced to Single Layer Graphene. Available dispersed or as a coating o include: solar energy, graphene semiconductor chips, conductive graphene films, graphene communications chips, graphene computer memory, graphene sheets, transparent conductive coatings, and many others yet to be discovered. A more cost effective Multi Layer Graphene Oxide with a high surface area and six average layers is coming soon.
[Contact: 802-254-6969 or sales@cheaptubes.com]

Selective Wavelength Photodiodes

Opto Diode Corporation, a global supplier of advanced performance photodiodes and visible and IR LEDs, introduces the first in a series of three new selective wavelength photodiodes. The ODD-470W features a spectral bandwidth of 100 nm. It operates between 380 nm and 540 nm, with a peak sensitivity response at 470 nm. With extremely low dark current and no optical filters used, the new photodetector is ideal for use in color sensors and fluorescence detection, and medical diagnostic applications.
[Contact: 805-499-0335 or russdahl@optodiode.com]

Valveless Metering Pumps & Dispensers Catalog

The new catalog from Fluid Metering, Inc. includes three new products. The PDS-100 is a Programmable Dispensing System which uses precision stepper motors to control delivery from 500 nanoliters per dispense up to 2 liters per minute continuous flow. The newly patented Chloritrol™ is a valveless metering system for accurate, maintenance-free injection of liquid sodium and calcium hypochlorite for treatment of municipal drinking water. And the third new product is the Smooth-flo PDS Pulse-Free Dispensing & Metering System. The new Catalog can be requested by phone, mail, email or can be easily viewed and downloaded from the Fluid Metering web site.
[Contact: 516-922-6050 or pumps@fmipump.com]

Continuous-Wave Solid-State Laser

Cobolt AB, a Swedish manufacturer of low-noise DPSS lasers, announces the release of the Cobolt Fandango™, a continuous-wave solid-state laser operating at a fixed wavelength of 515 nm and with an output power of 50 mW. Built on the Cobolt DPSS laser platform, the Cobolt Fandango™ is a single longitudinal mode laser with very low noise, narrow spectral line width and exceptionally high beam quality in a compact hermetically sealed package. Now available with up to 50 mW CW output power, the Cobolt Fandango™ is perfectly suited for power demanding fluorescence analysis applications such as spinning-disc confocal microscopy and high-speed plate reading.
[Contact: 46-8-545-912-30 or info@cobolt.se]

Researchers have integrated a collection of light sensors into polymer fibers, creating a new type of camera. Such a camera would be lightweight, robust, and even foldable. They integrated eight semiconducting light sensors into a polymer cylinder with a diameter of 25 millimeters, controlling the sensor’s spacing and angle within the fiber. Once the sensors, made of a type of semiconducting glass, were in position, the polymer cylinder was heated and then stretched so that the diameter shrank the diameter of hundreds of micrometers–a process that is identical to the way in which commercial fiber is made for telecommunication applications–retaining the orientation of the sensors. When light hits the semiconductors, it creates an electrical current. The intensity of this current from the fibers is input into algorithms, running on an attached computer, that create the image of an object placed near the sheet of fiber.
(June 22, 2009)
# Nanoparticles make self-erasing images
(Royal Society of Chemistry)

Credit: Angewandte Chemie

Materials displaying ‘self-erasing’ color images have been created by researchers, using specific nanoparticles that can assemble and disassemble themselves under different wavelengths of light. The materials are printed with ultraviolet (UV) light and erased with visible light. They are made by coating gold and silver nanoparticles with a single layer of azobenzene molecules, and then embedding the nanoparticles in thin, flexible ‘organogel’ films. When the films are exposed to UV light, the structural symmetry of the azobenzene molecules flips, and they acquire electric dipoles that make them attract. This attraction causes the nanoparticles to assemble, and thereby take on a new colour. However, in an absence of UV light – or even better, in strong visible light – the particles revert to their original symmetry, and the colour disappears over a period of time.
[Writing Self-Erasing Images using Metastable Nanoparticle Inks, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, Published Online: 16 Jun 2009]
(June 22, 2009)

Researchers are reporting the first use of a fundamentally new approach in the quest for a pure white light emitting LED. They describe the development of a new, simpler white LED using a single molecule that is the first to achieve stable white light emissions. Their specially engineered molecule combines two light-emitting materials, one orange and one blue, which together produce white light over the entire visible range. In laboratory studies, the scientists showed that light production from an LED using the new molecule was highly efficient and had excellent color stability and reproducibility.
[A White-Light-Emitting Molecule: Frustrated Energy Transfer between Constituent Emitting Centers, J. Am. Chem. Soc., Article ASAP DOI: 10.1021/ja902533f]
(June 19, 2009)

Solution-based processes for semiconductor nanocrystals such as spin or dip coating and inkjet printing are cost-effective ways to make large-area solar cells. However, individual nanocrystals in printed arrays made using these techniques communicate poorly with each other. This is because surface ligands, consisting of bulky, insulating organic molecules, block electric charge transfer from one nanocrystal to another. Researchers have now overcome this challenge by developing a new chemistry that allows coupling of individual nanocrystals into arrays of strongly communicating building blocks. The researchers glued colloidal nanocrystals together using a class of compounds called molecular metal chalcogenide complexes. The ligands are more stable and robust than the previously employed organic ligands and do not alter the chemistry of the nanocrystals. They also allow efficient charge transfer between the nanocrystals.
[Colloidal Nanocrystals with Molecular Metal Chalcogenide Surface Ligands, Science 12 June 2009: Vol. 324. no. 5933, pp. 1417 – 1420 DOI: 10.1126/science.1170524]
(June 19, 2009)
# Double helix is an electric slide for proteins
(Physics World)

DNA may contain the blueprint for life but it takes proteins to read the plan and build an organism. The mechanism of this vital biological process has remained a mystery but now researchers are proposing a physical model wherein individual proteins can “slide” freely along DNA strands in search of target sequences. The team envision the process involving ‘DNA-binding proteins’ swarming around the iconic double helix on account of electric attraction — proteins have a net positive charge and DNA has a net negative charge. Miraculously, these proteins can then bind to exactly the right section of the long, coiling DNA so they can carry out vital functions such as copying genetic information and translating genes into templates for protein production. This complex biological set-up was reduced into more general physical shapes. Using Monte Carlo computer simulations, DNA was modelled as a long cylinder, and the protein as one of four solids: a sphere; a cylinder; or a cube or cylinder with a groove carved in one side.
[Nonspecific DNA-Protein Interaction: Why Proteins Can Diffuse along DNA, Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 228101 (2009)]
(June 17, 2009)
# Concrete creep slowed to a crawl
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology / Eurekalert)

Resesearchers have for the first time identified what causes the most frequently used building material on earth — concrete — to gradually deform, decreasing its durability and shortening the lifespan of infrastructures such as bridges and nuclear waste containment vessels.They suggest that creep in concrete is caused by the rearrangement of particles at the nano-scale. They explain that concrete creep comes about when nanometer-sized C-S-H particles rearrange into altered densities: some looser and others more tightly packed. They also explain that a third, more dense phase of C-S-H can be induced by carefully manipulating the cement mix with other minerals such as silica fumes.
[To be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences]
(June 17, 2009)

A goal of scientists has been to develop an artificial version of photosynthesis that can be used to produce liquid fuels from carbon dioxide and water. Researchers have now taken a critical step towards this goal with the discovery that nano-sized crystals of cobalt oxide can effectively carry out the critical photosynthetic reaction of splitting water molecules. According to the researchers, Photooxidation of water molecules into oxygen, electrons and protons (hydrogen ions) is one of the two essential half reactions of an artifical photosynthesis system – it provides the electrons needed to reduce carbon dioxide to a fuel. Effective photooxidation requires a catalyst that is both efficient in its use of solar photons and fast enough to keep up with solar flux in order to avoid wasting those photons. Clusters of cobalt oxide nanocrystals are sufficiently efficient and fast, and are also robust (last a long time) and abundant. They perfectly fit the bill.
[Nanostructured Cobalt Oxide Clusters in Mesoporous Silica as Efficient Oxygen-Evolving Catalysts, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, Volume 48 Issue 10 (2009) 1841 – 1844]
(March 11, 2009)

Swiss banks are shutting the accounts of Americans as the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) accelerates the hunt for tax dodgers.

UBS and Credit Suisse Group, the country’s biggest banks, have told Americans to move their money into specially created units registered in the US, or lose the accounts.

Smaller private banks such as Geneva-based Mirabaud are closing all accounts held by US taxpayers.

While the banks declined to say how many people are affected, more than 5 million Americans live abroad, including about 30 000 in Switzerland, according to American Citizens Abroad in Geneva. Swiss banks must register with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to provide services for those customers.

My bank doesn’t want to do that, so we wouldn’t accept an investment account for a US person, Pierre Mirabaud, the chairman of Mirabaud, said yesterday.

SEC registration means that the clients do not enjoy the protection of Swiss banking secrecy laws, which makes it a crime for money managers to disclose the names of clients without their consent.

Switzerland said in March that it would co-operate with international tax evasion probes after UBS admitted helping US clients avoid taxes.

The IRS has since increased pressure on Americans to disclose offshore accounts as it seeks to recoup an estimated $50 billion (about R394bn) in unpaid taxes.

The agency set a deadline of September 23 for taxpayers to declare all foreign accounts or face possible criminal prosecution that could result in as much as 10 years in prison and $500 000 in penalties.

The US has also proposed increasing reporting and oversight requirements for so-called qualified intermediaries – foreign banks that withhold taxes on behalf of the IRS.
Click here

That might increase the cost of compliance and the risk of violating US laws, said Charles Adams, the managing partner at law firm Hogan & Hartson in Geneva.

American citizens are starting to feel like they’re Typhoid Mary, said Adams, who hosted a 2008 fundraiser for presidential candidate Barack Obama that featured actor George Clooney.

The Swiss simply don’t want American customers because it requires so much infrastructure and hassle that they do not make any money.

Sandra Dysli, an American who has lived in Geneva for 40 years, said Zurich-based Bank Zweiplus and a Geneva branch of Raiffeisen International Bank had refused to open investment accounts for her.

UBS said last July that it planned to stop all offshore banking and investment services for people subject to US taxes, except through US registered units.

UBS notified US clients in a March 27 letter that it would close accounts within 45 days. Customers were asked to transfer assets to entities registered with the SEC, and asked to consult an adviser about the US tax consequences, according to a copy of the letter.

UBS will no longer be able to continue to provide services to you through your current account, the letter said.

The spokesman for UBS, Dominique Gerster, declined to say how much progress the bank had made in moving US clients or closing their accounts.

We offer domestic and international wealth management services in compliance with all applicable laws, regulations, and policies, said Jan Vonder Muehll, the spokesman for Credit Suisse.

The objective of the DPR is to present a general overview of international, English-language, media coverage of the IAEA and nuclear issues, that does not purport to be exhaustive. The following articles are obtained from external news sources for whose content the IAEA takes no responsibility.

30 June 2009
IAEA in the News

Election row hits Iran nuclear talks Prospects for negotiations over Iran’s nuclear activities appear bleak after the reassertion of power by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. BBC

Safety Of Canada’s Nuclear Reactors In Question Because Of Design Feature Canada’s seven nuclear stations which use Candu technology have a positive reactivity feedback design feature which may lead to dangerous power pulses in the event of a major accident. AHN
Other Nuclear News

North Korea Trying to Enrich Uranium, South Says North Korea appears to be enriching uranium, potentially giving the state that tested a plutonium-based nuclear device in May another path for making atomic weapons, South Korea’s defense minister said on Tuesday. Reuters

Berlusconi says G8 sanctions likely against Iran The Group of Eight wealthy powers are likely to agree to adopt sanctions against Iran when they meet in Italy next week, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Monday. Reuters

Group offers plan to eliminate nukes by 2030 A group committed to eliminating nuclear weapons presented on Monday a four-step plan to achieve that goal by 2030, while acknowledging that Iran could be a show stopper. AP

Central Asians seek help to clear Cold War waste Four Central Asian countries called on Monday for international help from governments and business in clearing toxic nuclear waste left over from the Cold War when they formed part of the Soviet Union. Reuters

Re-think urged on UK nuclear deterrent The Government was today facing renewed pressure to re-think its decision to update its Trident nuclear deterrent in the face of growing cost pressures on the defence budget. The Independent

Should renewable energy include nuclear? The US, China, and dozens of other countries are meeting today in Egypt to chart the course of a new international agency aimed at promoting renewable energy. CSMonitor
Opinion and Analysis

NUCLEUS is the common access point to the IAEA’s scientific, technical and regulatory information resources. It incorporates, and facilitates access to about 100 IAEA databases, scientific and technical publications as well as safety standards.
Featured Information Resources

Food Irradiation Clearance Database (FICD)
A database on country approvals of irradiated foods for human consumption. More »

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
The International Nuclear Information System (INIS) provides leading information on the peaceful uses of nuclear science and technology. More »

Food Irradiation Facilities Database (FIFD)
A database on facilities for the irradiation of foods intended for human consumption. More »

Power Reactor Information System (PRIS)
PRIS is a comprehensive data source of nuclear power reactors in the world. More »

Radiation Protection of Patients (RPOP)
Information to help health professionals achieve safer use of radiation in medicine for the benefit of patients. More »

Incident Reporting system (IRS)
The Incident Reporting System (IRS) is an international system through which thirty-one participating countries exchange experience to improve the safety of nuclear power plants . More »

The objective of the DPR is to present a general overview of international, English-language, media coverage of the IAEA and nuclear issues, that does not purport to be exhaustive. The following articles are obtained from external news sources for whose content the IAEA takes no responsibility.

30 June 2009
IAEA in the News

Election row hits Iran nuclear talks Prospects for negotiations over Iran’s nuclear activities appear bleak after the reassertion of power by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. BBC

Safety Of Canada’s Nuclear Reactors In Question Because Of Design Feature Canada’s seven nuclear stations which use Candu technology have a positive reactivity feedback design feature which may lead to dangerous power pulses in the event of a major accident. AHN
Other Nuclear News

North Korea Trying to Enrich Uranium, South Says North Korea appears to be enriching uranium, potentially giving the state that tested a plutonium-based nuclear device in May another path for making atomic weapons, South Korea’s defense minister said on Tuesday. Reuters

Berlusconi says G8 sanctions likely against Iran The Group of Eight wealthy powers are likely to agree to adopt sanctions against Iran when they meet in Italy next week, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Monday. Reuters

Group offers plan to eliminate nukes by 2030 A group committed to eliminating nuclear weapons presented on Monday a four-step plan to achieve that goal by 2030, while acknowledging that Iran could be a show stopper. AP

NUCLEUS is the common access point to the IAEA’s scientific, technical and regulatory information resources. It incorporates, and facilitates access to about 100 IAEA databases, scientific and technical publications as well as safety standards.
Featured Information Resources

Food Irradiation Clearance Database (FICD)
A database on country approvals of irradiated foods for human consumption. More »

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
The International Nuclear Information System (INIS) provides leading information on the peaceful uses of nuclear science and technology. More »

Food Irradiation Facilities Database (FIFD)
A database on facilities for the irradiation of foods intended for human consumption. More »

Power Reactor Information System (PRIS)
PRIS is a comprehensive data source of nuclear power reactors in the world. More »

Radiation Protection of Patients (RPOP)
Information to help health professionals achieve safer use of radiation in medicine for the benefit of patients. More »

Incident Reporting system (IRS)
The Incident Reporting System (IRS) is an international system through which thirty-one participating countries exchange experience to improve the safety of nuclear power plants . More »

* 436 nuclear power reactors in operation with a total net installed capacity of 370.221 GW(e)
* 5 nuclear power reactors in long term shutdown
* 48 nuclear power reactors under construction

***
Japan: Nuclear Power Reactors – Alphabetic
Under Construction 2 Operational 53
Long Term Shutdown 1 Shutdown 5
Annual Electrical Power Production for 2008
Total Power Production (including Nuclear) Nuclear Power Production
964931.668 GWh(e) 240518.529 GWh(e)
Click on the name of a reactor to view its full details.

[You need to know this – and this is where to find it – ]
NUCLEAR POWER PLANT INFORMATION

This section provides some of the tables and charts which are produced using PRIS data. All data are based on information provided by IAEA Member States through designated national correspondents or governmental organizations.

* Number of Reactors up to date
o Operational by age
o Under Construction
+ By Country
+ By Type
o Operational & Long Term Shutdown
+ By Country
+ By Type
o Shutdown
+ By Country
+ By Type

* Last three years factors by country up to 2008 (Includes only operational reactors from 2006 up to 2008)
o Energy Availability Factor
o Unit Capability Factor
o Unplanned Capability Loss Factor

* World average factors by year (Energy Availability Factor, Unit Capability Factor & Unplanned Capability Loss Factor calculated only for operational reactors from 1998 up to 2008)
* Reactors Under Construction
* Number of Reactors in Operation Worldwide
* Nuclear Share of Electricity Generation
* Number of Reactors in Operation by Age
* World Energy Availability Factors by Year

[located by using tab above left sidebar search window for details on each country – this page is the World Summary listing by clicket on those words in the left sidebar – then it is the portal for all of these things listed above.]

Contact Details
Street Address: 240 Thames Street, P.O. Box 1459
City: Newport
State: Rhode Island
Country: United States of America
Continent: America: North
Postal Code: 2840
Telephone: (401) 846-1775
Internet URL: http://tallships.sailtraining.org
Mission Statement
The American Sail Training Association (ASTA) is a Rhode Island-based, non-profit organization dedicated to enriching youth education through character building and leadership development experiences aboard tall ships. Founded in 1973, ASTA represents more than 250 American and international sailing vessels and is the largest sail training association in the world. Our national mission is to encourage character building through sail training, to promote sail training to the North American public, and to support education opportunities under sail. The organization?s activities directly support experiential education and personal development programs that profoundly shape young people?s lives and help build tomorrow?s leaders

Educational Offerings
Publications:
We publish the directory of sail training vessels?Sail Tall Ships ?that has been the only comprehensive register of vessels and related educational programs for more than 25 years. , http://www.sailtraining.org

School Programs:
We award scholarships that give young people the chance to experience life at sea aboard tall ships and that help vessels develop effective sail training programs., http://www.sailtraining.org

Exhibits:
We organize the TALL SHIPS CHALLENGE which is an annual series of tall ships races and maritime fesitvals across North America. , http://www.sailtraining.org

Web Programs:
Online professional development and employment opportunities in the sail training industry, educational resources., http://www.sailtraining.org

Mission Statement
To foster scientific and technological literacy throughout Canada by establishing, maintaining and developing a collection of scientific and technological objects, with special but not exclusive reference to Canada, and by demonstrating the products and processes of science and technology and their economic, social and cultural relationships with society.

Educational Offerings
School Programs:
Students discover, enjoy and marvel at science and technology in school programs designed to complement school curricula in math, science and technology, and social studies. Our programs extend the classroom experience, emphasizing active participation, hands-on opportunities and problem-solving. , http://www.sciencetech.technomuses.ca/english/schoolzone/index.cfm

Exhibits:
Canada?s largest science and technology museum is a great hands-on experience for visitors of all ages. Discover some of the most important scientific objects in Canada. Climb aboard real trains, try your hand at fascinating experiments, and see for yourself how science and technology affect our everyday lives., http://www.sciencetech.technomuses.ca/english/whatson/ongoing_exhibits.c

Mission Statement
The Coastalwatch web site links viewers to live coastal images, current information and news, via a system of national web cameras Coastalwatch is committed to bringing the coast to all Australians and overseas visitors, making a significant contribution to safer coastal use and more efficient and cost effective coastal management. Coastalwatch actively supports community groups such as Surf Life Saving, Volunteer Rescue organisations, Surfing Australia, Surfrider Foundation Australia and charities such as SurfAid International and the Disabled Surfers Association. Coastalwatch is currently consolidating its position as the premier provider of these services in Australia and overseas. Through the expansion of its camera networks, the provision of accurate, cost effective real time coastal zone management data, and establishing and maintaining beneficial links with community groups, all levels of government and agencies, Coastalwatch will continue its sustainable growth and will be the World???s best.

Mission Statement
The mission of the D&H Canal Historical Society is to preserve, protect and perpetuate the unique history of the Delaware & Hudson Canal
.
Educational Offerings
Publications:
The Canawler newsletter – free to members – includes information on D&H Canal Historical Society activities, events and archival information.

School Programs:
We provide elementary and secondary school programs, teacher resources and youth and adult programs.

Exhibits:
Our Museum exhibits include a working lock model, dioramas, fine art and artifacts and the Five Locks Walk, a National Historic Landmark towpath trail

Study Collections:
The Museum has extensive archives of photographs, maps and primary documents.

Institute for Science, Technology and Public Policy (ISTPP)
Contact Details
Street Address:
Texas A&M University, George Bush School of Government and Public Service, 4350 TAMU
City:
College Station
State:
Texas
Country:
United States of America
Continent: America: North
Postal Code:
77843-4350
Telephone:
(979) 845-2929
Facsimile:
(979) 862-8856
Internet URL: http://bush.tamu.edu/research/ISTPP, http://bush.tamu.edu/about_us/directory/details/?t=istpp_dir
Mission Statement
The Institute for Science, Technology and Public Policy (ISTPP) is a nonpartisan, interdisciplinary public policy research institute. The Institute pursues a dual mission: the scholarly examination of public policy issues and the communication of research-based knowledge to the public and decision makers. It seeks to (1) conduct and facilitate interdisciplinary research required by today???s complex problems, and (2) enhance the university???s ability to communicate research findings in ways that have a positive impact on the policy process and the public???s understanding of science and technology issues. ISTPP interdisciplinary research projects focus on the ways that scientific and technological information is framed, processed, communicated, and received in complex systems and the policy implications of these processes. Projects have as their goal the development of theoretical and applied frameworks that integrate technical and policy data to provide more holistic assessments of problems and their potential solutions.
Organizational Type

Owen Sound Marine-Rail Museum
Contact Details
Street Address:
1155 1st Avenue West
City:
Owen Sound
State:
Ontario
Country:
Canada
Continent: America: North
Postal Code:
N4K 4K8
Telephone:
(519) 371-3333
Facsimile:
(519) 371-8628
Internet URL: http://www.e-owensound.com/marinerail
Mission Statement
Located on the waterfront in the former Canadian National Railway depot, the Museum illustrates the time at the turn of the century when Owen Sound was a thriving and bustling port that served as the ?Gateway to the West?. Visit our displays of artifacts, models, photographs and interactive stations related to the history of marine & rail transportation and associated area industries
Educational Offerings
Publications:
Member newletter each spring and late fall.
School Programs:
Organized interactive group activities incorporating fun and learning are available. Youth will learn about our heritage in ways that arouse interest and allow hands-on experience. Minimum two week advance booking is recommended.
Exhibits:
Harbour History Ship-to-Shore In the mid 1800?s, the Harbour was the only way to bring a large amount of goods into what is now Owen Sound. This city grew and became what it is as a result of the marine traffic in and out of our harbour.
Organizational Type

Mission Statement
SeafoodIntelligence.com (www.seafoodintelligence.com)- is a leading news & intelligence service for the international aquaculture, fisheries, global seafood and agrifood industries for all topics interesting marketers, managers, stakeholders, fisheries & marine scientists, decision-makers at large & consumers. It also features directories with more than 12,000 seafood companies listed, thousands of relevant WWW links, a job board with many scientific postings, classifieds, and much more

Mission Statement
SEACOOS is a collaborative university partnership which collects, manages, and disseminates integrated regional ocean observations and information products for the coasts of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Funding for this effort has been provided by the Office of Naval Research.

Mission Statement
Australasia’s most popular website for divers, snorkellers and other marine enthusiasts – featuring an extensive directory, regional underwater gallery, 100s of interesting articles on marine critters and dive experiences and much much more.

Mission Statement
The mission of the Museum is to provide a rewarding museum experience based on the age of sail and to enhance the understanding of our rich maritime heritage through world-class maritime art, unique ship models, dynamic exhibits, artifacts, and educational programs.

Educational Offerings
School Programs:
At Sea 3 day Expeditions on tall ships off the Channel Islands, marine science afloat & in the classroom, social science.

Curriculum:
All programs support applicable grade-specific state core curriculum standards.

Exhibits:
Art traces the evolution of Marine Art from 1622 to present, ship models trace the development of sailing vessels, local maritime history exhibits.

The pioneering proposals, unveiled at the World Business Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen, take the form of a global framework that clarifies precisely which climate change data should be reported by corporations and provides management with a set of guidelines designed to streamline disclosure procedures.

climate-changeWashington, May 1 : An analysis by a joint US-Russian team has determined that Siberia’s Lake Baikal, the world’s largest and most biologically diverse lake, faces the prospect of severe ecological disruption as a result of climate change.

The analysis was done by Marianne V. Moore, of Wellesley College in Massachusetts, and five coauthors, including four from Irkutsk State University in Russia.

Lake Baikal is considered a treasure trove for biologists and was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO because a high proportion of its rich fauna and flora are found nowhere else.

Arctic ice melt in 2008 has been ‘fascinating’ and ‘alarming’, say scientistsOttawa, Oct 6 : Climate scientists have said that the melting of the Arctic ice this year has been ‘fascinating’ and ‘alarming’.

According to a report in the Vancouver Sun, so much ice had melted by the end of August 2008 that it was possible for the first time in human history to circumnavigate the North Pole, prompting one prominent U. S. scientist to say that the ice cap has entered a “death spiral.”

Washington, September 10 : A new study that has examined tradeoff among fuel switching and emission control policies, has indicated that fuel emissions from marine vessels still remain a global concern.

The study was carried out by James Winebrake, professor and chair of the Department of Science, Technology and Society/Public Policy at Rochester Institute of Technology, and James Corbett, associate professor in the College of Marine and Earth Studies at the University of Delaware.
***

Tamweel, the UAE’s largest provider of real estate finance, has announced that it has clocked a net loss of Dh41 million for the quarter ending March 31, 2009.

According to sources, the conglomerate has reported an operational profit of Dh11million for the period, an impairment provision amounting to Dh52 million landed the company in a net loss for the first quarter of the current fiscal.

The sources further added that the Islamic financing and investing assets stood at Dh10 billion at the end of March.

The Georgia Aquarium works hard to facilitate all of the needs of our guests. We have provided links to the various sections of the Web site, which may answer many of your questions. We will respond to your email as quickly as possible. Please do not send emails to multiple addresses; it will only hinder our response time.

Call (404)581-4000 or email Visitor Services for comments, questions and problems related to the following:

* Visiting the Aquarium including: hours of operation, tickets, annual passes and any matters concerning our call center, online ticketing and reservations.
* Our special group rates or make a group reservation for school groups, field trips, family reunions, church groups, club groups, girl/boy scout groups or birthday parties.
* Existing ticket orders

Georgia Aquarium’s Social Media:

* Facebook
* Twitter
* YouTube
* MySpace
* Flickr

Group Sales & Reservations:

Send comments and questions related to conventions or large groups in hotels to
John Walker.

Send comments and questions related to booking private parties, corporate events, kosher events and weddings to booking@georgiaaquarium.org.
Development and Sponsorship:
Send comments or questions about making a donation or gift to the aquarium through 4Rs, FishScales or Founder’s Pass to 4R@georgiaaquarium.org.
Marketing:

Send comments and questions related to marketing, advertising and promotions to marketing@georgiaaquarium.org
Media Professionals:
Working media professionals should send any questions or requests to media@georgiaaquarium.org.
School Group Educational Programs:

All requests for reservations should be directed to (404)581-4433 or you may book online through our Education page.

Send general comments or questions about our student educational programs and teacher workshops to education@georgiaaquarium.org.
Volunteering:

Send comments and questions related to volunteering with the Georgia Aquarium to volunteer@georgiaaquarium.org.
Employment:

As our staffing needs change regularly, please check the employment section of our web site for an up-to-date, complete listing of available employment opportunities at the Georgia Aquarium. We will review your application and/or résumé as quickly as possible and should your qualifications, experience and interest reflect our immediate needs, we will contact you.

** My Note – There was an employment listing at the Aquarium site for Paradies Gift Shop which I would guess is the owner of the concession for the Aquarium gift shop and others. Its listings are below:

The Paradies Shops operates more than 500 stores in over 70 airports and hotels across the United States and Canada, serving more than a half-billion customers each year. These stores include original, one-of-a-kind brands unique to individual airports, as well as national brands.

Outside of airports, The Paradies Shops operates retail locations at the Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center (Orlando, Florida), Tropicana Hotel and Casino (Atlantic City, New Jersey) and the Hilton Americas Hotel (Houston, Texas). The company also operates the concession program at the world’s largest aquarium – The Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta.

With roots tracing back to 1960, Paradies is a true pioneer in airport concessions. We were the driving force that moved the industry toward emphasizing value (through the Request for Proposal “RFP” process) over price (bid).

Paradies has enjoyed 49 consecutive years of growth and profitability. We have increased sales from $4 million in 1978 to more than $428 million in 2008.

Diversity and minority representation is important to us. More than half (55 percent) of our over 3,000-member employee family is comprised of people of color, and our company-wide DBE participation rate is 23 percent.

The Paradies Shops is the most recognized and acclaimed airport concessionaire. Airport Revenue News (ARN), the industry’s leading publication, has named us the nation’s “Best Airport Retailer” for 14 consecutive years; no other airport retailer has won this award. Additionally, ARN has named us as “Best News & Gift Operator” and “Concessionaire With The Highest Regards for Customer Service. The Paradies Shops has also captured scores of other industry honors, including ARN’s “Best Airport Retail Store Design”, Georgia Trend Magazine’s “Family Business of the Year”, and has been recognized by the Atlanta Business Chronicle as an A+ Employer.

Our company culture and values distinguish us in the marketplace. We treat our team members, customers and business partners as members of our family, and we pride ourselves on finding ways to exceed expectations on all fronts.http://www.theparadiesshops.com/about.shtml

The over 3,000 employees of The Paradies Shops are the driving force behind the company’s success in airport, hotel and specialized retailing. That’s largely because they’re empowered and entrusted by The Paradies Shops leadership to uphold the high standards of the company’s brand, every day.

By creating a family culture and leading by example, the executive team of The Paradies Shops has sustained a remarkable growth rate for the company for nearly half a century. The Paradies Shops’ leadership has fostered a “can-do” spirit and has taken steps to ensure that the over 3,000 team members who staff the shops have the support to provide every customer with an exceptional shopping experience.

Comprised of experienced men and women, The Paradies Shops’ leadership team is both expert and enterprising. Some re-shaped the industry in the 1970s by showing airports the value of considering the quality and creativity of the retail experience, rather than focusing exclusively on the bid price. And by focusing on the specific needs and interests of the traveling public – as well as the unique attributes of every airport and its locale – the company’s leadership has built a brand that is distinct and lasting.

Learn more about the background and contributions of the The Paradies Shops executives who lead the way for every member of our family. Learn more about our founder, Dan Paradies.

One of The Paradies Shops’ most successful endeavors is seeking out and offering the best and most innovative local merchandise through airport Vendor Fairs. Fairs are conducted for the purpose of soliciting local and regional vendors whose products could be offered for sale in airport retail stores.

Vendor Fairs, held intermittently throughout the year, assure The Paradies Shops is offering fresh, new merchandise on a consistent basis, while at the same time giving exposure to the local community of vendors who might not otherwise have the opportunity for such exposure. Official events in several Paradies markets, Vendor Fairs are established at the Support Center in Atlanta and announced in local markets.

The people of The Paradies Shops never stop thinking about new ways to serve their customers. This spirit of invention results in special programs that provide speed, convenience and comfort to the millions of people who pass through the company’s host airports and properties every day.
Paradies’ special programs have captured national media coverage and industry recognition. But the greatest satisfaction comes from helping another member of our family enjoy the experience of travel – the customer.

Nov 14, 2007
Buy a book in Hartford, get half your money back in San Francisco

The Designs by Sue concept was introduced by The Paradies Shops and is an innovative concept in retail design. With its debut at the Pittsburgh International Airport, the brand employs a fresh tongue and cheek approach to marketing a new designer : Ms. Sue Venir. Sue travels the world to seek out and find rare and exclusive souvenirs that retail for $9.99 or less.

The store takes on an import/export storage warehouse look, complete with fixtures made of packing crates and shipping cartons. Artwork, featuring the worldly and sophisticated Ms. Venir, in the many exotic locations to which she has traveled, are featured within the store.

OVERVIEW
The Surfrider Foundation is a non-profit grassroots organization dedicated to the protection and enjoyment of our world’s oceans, waves and beaches. Founded in 1984 by a handful of visionary surfers in Malibu, California, the Surfrider Foundation now maintains over 50,000 members and 80 chapters worldwide.

The groups or initiatives listed below are those to which Conservation Science Institute provides information, or those that stand out as particularly helpful in resolving ecological dilemmas related to the oceans.

Sea Around Us Project aims to provide an integrated analysis of the impacts of fisheries on marine ecosystems, and to devise policies that can mitigate and reverse harmful trends whilst ensuring the social and economic benefits of sustainable fisheries.

Oceana is a non-profit international advocacy organization dedicated to protecting and restoring the world’s oceans through policy advocacy, science, law, and public education.

The Marine Conservation Biology Institute works to protect and restore marine life by encouraging research and training in marine conservation biology, bringing scientists together to examine crucial marine conservation issues, doing policy research to frame the marine conservation agenda, lecturing, producing books and other publications to educate scientists, the public and decision makers on key issues, and building partnerships to solve problems affecting marine life and people.

The Marine Fish Conservation Network is a coalition of over 150 national and regional environmental organizations, commercial and recreational fishing groups, aquariums, and marine science groups dedicated to conserving marine fish and to promoting their long-term sustainability.

The Shifting Baselines Group: Marine Biology heroes Jim Carlton, Paul Dayton, and Daniel Pauly conceived the phenomenon of shifting baselines as ‘moving targets of reduced expectations of the natural state of an ecosystem.’ Baselines ‘shift’ because new researchers erroneously perceive the ecosystems they first encounter to be healthy baselines.

The Surfrider Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting our oceans, waves, and beaches.

The Earth Island Institute develops and supports projects that counteract threats to the biological and cultural diversity that sustain the environment. Through education and activism, these projects promote the conservation, preservation, and restoration of the Earth.

Like medicine for the shopping weary, Home Remedies (1026 Valencia, 415-826-2026) offers an easy trip down Santa Claus lane for kids and adults. Pick up a San Francisco-scene dish towel ($6.50), fingerless gloves ($8), an illustrated, needle- and yarn-inclusive learn-to-knit scarf kit ($22), a feather- and fur-topped tool set ($35), a gorgeous, supersoft woven wrap in tangerine, aquamarine, plum, or olive ($55), a Space Boy flashlight with a Morse code siren ($12.95), and Mother Goose nesting blocks ($22), along with a few show-off pillows and linens and some regional food specialties, like maple syrup and hot sauce.

Bookstores are heavy on the ground in these parts, with Abandoned Planet (518 Valencia, 415-861-4695), Borderland Books (866 Valencia, 824-8203), Modern Times (888 Valencia, 415-282-9246), and Dog Eared Books (910 Valencia, 415-282-1901) housing enough fiction and nonfiction titles, zines, small-press beauties, calendars, cookbooks, mysteries, and histories to make you want to curl up in front of the fire (or central heater) for the winter. And for the note-inclined, there’s Aquarius Records (1055 Valencia, 415-647-2272), a good place to test-drive the latest death metal, electroclash, noise, pop, jazz, or ambient CD before putting it under the tree.

First and foremost, there’s Amoeba Music (1855 Haight, 415-831-1200), where you can find something to please anyone with ears – and eyes, too, thanks to the easy-to-search selection of old concert posters from local clubs and far beyond. Two blocks down at the independently owned Booksmith (1644 Haight, 415-863-8688), pick up an autographed copy of Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Other Wind ($25) or Dan Savage’s Skipping towards Gomorrah ($23.95) as well as other great hard- or softcover reads.

Remember those crafts you were going to learn how to make? Well, at Mendel’s (1556 Haight, 415-621-1287) you can find the supplies for people who already know how. There are make-a-pet-dish kits ($12.95) for the animal lover, mosaic house-number sets for the new homeowner/renter ($25), paint-by-number kits ($5.95) for the budding realist artist, fabrics and buttons galore for the sewer, and yes, tie-dye kits ($19.95) for the Deadheads. And Mendel’s rubber stamps, stickers, coloring books, and stencils make perfect stocking stuffers.

It would be close to impossible not to find the perfect magazine, comic, or small-press book for even your most difficult gift recipient at Anubis Warpus (1525 Haight, 415-431-2218). Imagine the joy your unemployed friends will experience as they unwrap Sell Yourself to Science ($16.95) or The Art and Science of Dumpster Diving ($14.95) – and the horror your parents will experience as they watch your younger sister ooh and aah over the latest tattoo or body-piercing tome. Plus, there’s an enviable selection of belt buckles (grizzly bears, banjos, states), a few racks of club-ready clothes ($5-$20), and plenty of nose and tongue rings to choose from.

Kid Robot (1512 Haight, 415-487-9000) sells collectible Western and Asian vinyl action figures, such as the bad-ass Ray the Aerosol Can ($59.95), Stereo’s Who’s Next Girl ($69.95, complete with disposable camera), Michael Lau’s Crazychildren series (from $21.95), the Mulletheads ($7.95), Planet of the Apes characters ($19.95 a set), and Run DMC ($19.95). Kid Robot also stocks very intriguing stuffed items like Friends with You Albino Squid ($44.95).

A silk robe ($92) or a floral, wooden-handled purse ($18.95) from the decidedly French-flared Nest (2300 Fillmore, 415-292-6199) is not the sort of gift that would end up in the exchange pile. Neither are the French posters ($12) and metal signs ($20), hooks made out of old perfume ads ($22), Parisian teapots ($90), or stunning quilts (around $450 for a queen). Toward the back are children’s clothes and toys, as well as a lovely learn-your-animal-names bowl set ($9).

SFO

Last but not least, the truly desperate traveler will want to use his or her postsecurity check time to browse the minimalls of San Francisco International Airport, with its cavalcade of Fisherman’s Wharf-variety shops selling San Francisco magnets and T-shirts and sourdough everything. For gourmet food and wine there’s San Francisco Bay Traders, Made in California, and the California Product Shop, and yes, Virginia, there is a See’s Candies. Even the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has a place at the airport. There’s also branches of the Museum Store, Discovery Channel, and Mont Blanc. If you didn’t think of anything for Dad, take a look around San Francisco Golf, which bills itself as the largest airport golf store in the country. And last of all, stock up on reading material for the flight. When you’re through with the New York Times, you’ll be spending the rest of the flight wrapping up the results of your hard day’s work.

The Institute For Figuring is crocheting a coral reef: a woolly celebration of the intersection of higher geometry and feminine handicraft, and a testimony to the disappearing wonders of the marine world.

Created and curated by IFF directors:
Christine Wertheim and Margaret Wertheim

One of the acknowledged wonders of the natural world, the Great Barrier Reef stretches along the coast of Queensland like a psychadelic serpent, a riotous profusion of color and form unparalleled on our planet. But global warming and pollutants so threaten this fragile monster that scientists now believe the reef will be devastated in coming years. As a homage to the Great One, IFF directors Margaret and Christine Wertheim instigated a project to crochet a woolen reef. The sisters, who grew up in Queensand, have been spearheading the project since 2005, quiety watching as it has morphed into an unexpected and far-reaching wordwide movement.

The Reef begins with the technique of hyperbolic crochet discovered by mathematician Dr. Daina Taimina, which the Institute has taken up and elaborated into a polyphony of organismal crochet procedures, bringing into being in a wide taxonomy of reef-life forms. Loopy kelps , fringed anemones , and curlicued corals have all been modeled. While the process that brings these models into being is algorithmic, endless permutations of the underlying formulae result in a constantly surprising panoply of shapes. The quality of yarn, style of stitch, and tightness of the crochet all affect the finished forms so that each is as individual as a living organism. As a whole, the Crochet Reef is made up of many different “sub-reefs,” each with its own colors and styling: these include the Bleached Reef, the Beaded Reef, the Branched Anemone Garden, and our largest work, The Ladies’ Silurian Atoll, a ring-shaped installation with close to 1000 individual crochet pieces made by dozens of contributors around the world. In addition to these woolen reefs is the massive Toxic Reef crocheted from yarn and plastic trash – a part of the project that responds to the escalating problem of plastic trash that is innundating our oceans and choking marine life.

Large scale anemone with brain coral head by Margaret Wertheim.

Each crochet model results from the application of an iterative recipe. Like fractals, such as the Mandelbrot Set, these forms come into being through the process of doing a small set of steps again and again and again. Though experience often serves as a guide, there is no way to know in advance what a specific algorithm will produce and we have many times been surprised when seemingly insignificant changes in the underlying pattern led to fundamentally new results. In a very real sense, this is a kind of experimental mathematics and we invite crocheters everywhere to explore for themselves the possibilities inherent in these techniques.

More information about these techniques and instructons for making specific forms are given in the IFF’s extensive Onine Exhibit about Hyperboic Crochet. We encourage beginners to expore this Exhibit, which also explains the concept of hyperbolic space.
This information is also available in a beautifully produced handbook published by the Institute called A Field Guide to Hyperboic Space, which may be purchased here: A Field Guide to Hyperbolic Space.

Orange brain coral with urchins.
Getting started on your own hyperbolic models is easy. The basic insight is to understand that these forms result from the simple process of increasing the number of stitches in every row. The more often you increase stitches the faster the model will grow and the more crenellated the finished form will become. Models can begin with a simple line, resulting in a hyperbolic plane; or from a single point with the crochet spiraling around to gradually fan out like a cone, resulting in what is known as a pseudosphere. You may also begin from a circle, which will produce tubular, bell shaped, or trumpeted configurations. Once you start to experiment, the variety is endless and we recommend that beginners study our Introductory Gallery for helpful tips.

Crochet coral and anemone garden.

As you explore, be playful. Don’t worry about sticking too closely to the formal rules, though it’s interesting and important to understand what the rules do. Try things out for fun. Experiment with different types of yarn. Try mixing yarns together, say a thick worsted and a fine mohair, or a silk and a cotton thread. Try varying the rate of increasing in a single model. Consider using string, wire, and plastic, or anything else that takes your fancy. Try felting – throw the finished model in a washing machine with hot water and let it churn for half an hour. This only works with pure wool (acrylics and cotton won’t felt) but the results are wonderfu

We encourage you all to be inventive – in the end the only overriding rule of the Crochet Reef project is that there are no rules that can’t be broken. Just as living organisms continually evolve and morph into new forms, so too there is an endless taxonomy of crochet reef forms awaiting to be.

Cape Farewell brings artists, scientists and educators together to collectively address and raise awareness about climate change. Created by David Buckland, Cape Farewell has led three expeditions into the wild, beautiful and icy High Arctic, a place for artistic inspiration and scientific enquiry.

‘Articles on climate change appear almost daily in the newspapers, and on television and it can appear that such issues are beyond our control. This is why we are trying to use the personal experiences of renowned artists, and the creative vocabulary of art rather than science, to raise an awareness that everyone individually can help alleviate the impacts of climate change…’ (Bergit Arends, Art Curator at the Natural History Museum, London)
Art and the Sea Gallery

This gallery at Britain’s National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, offers an overview of the sea in European visual culture from the 16th to 21st centuries.
Louis George-Batier (in French and English)

A voyager’s record in art of boats and maritime life around the world.
The Marine Art Information Center

Lists auctions, art galleries, and museums with marine art collections, and offers articles on marine art history, links to marine photography and maritime research sites, and a library of titles on marine art.
Marine Art Quarterly

Insider information from the one of the contemporary marine art world’s leading galleries; offers issues of the Quarterly, images of new works, information about historic marine art, and links to gallery exhibitions.
American Society of Marine Artists

A gallery of members’ work is an outstanding feature of this site on contemporary American marine art. ASMA is a membership organization aiming to recognize and promote marine art and history, and to encourage the interests of artists, historians, marine enthusiasts and others.
The Institute for Figuring: Crochet Coral Reef

The Institute For Figuring is crocheting a coral reef: a woolly celebration of the intersection of higher geometry and feminine handicraft, and a testimony to the disappearing wonders of the marine world.
Arden Scott: Sculptor

Arden Scott’s environment provides much of the inspiration for her artwork, which most recently has centered on the creation of elegantly simplified sculptures of boats, canoes and other pleasure craft.
Saltwater Yirkalla Bark Paintings of Sea Country

The Australian National Maritime Museum’s display of its renowned Saltwater Collection… eighty spectacular Indigenous bark paintings that double as legal documents.

All of these works were painted by artists among the Yolngu people of north-east Arnhem Land in the late 1990s to explain their traditional ties with the region’s coastal zone – their ‘saltwater country.’ Click here for image gallery.
Ocean Literature

With a crumbling ceiling, overturned cars, a cable car crashing through a wall, and broken concrete columns, After The Quake® is proud to present a Disaster Sale to all customers who walk through its torn and ragged entrance. Almost everything is on sale in this 8000 square foot retail store which has barely survived one of the periodic earthquakes that shake, rattle and roll the beautiful city of San Francisco.
Days / Hours of Operation: After The Quake® shopping zone is open 365 days a year from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m
Directions: After the Quake is convenient to Fisherman’s Wharf parking lots and public transit. For more information, please visit the Parking or Public Transit pages.

Novelty, souvenir and clothing store
Directions: Bay Company/ The Flagship is convenient to Fisherman’s Wharf parking lots and public transit. For more information, please visit the Parking or Public Transit pages

A fun, relaxed Hawaiian approach to original T-shirts found only here.
Days / Hours of Operation: Both Crazy Shirts stores in Fisherman’s Wharf are open Sunday through Thursday from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., and Friday and Saturday 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Directions: For the Crazy Shirts store at 333 Jefferson Street, enter the Anchorage Square garage at 500 Beach Street at Jones. Park for only $3 for the first hour with validation of purchase. You can also take the cable car to the Hyde Street turnaround, which is just a block away. Or hop aboard a vintage “F” Line streetcar and get off right at our door.

Frank’s Fisherman offers original oil paintings, antique ship models, rare marine navigation devices, and historic ship’s accouterment. We have been in business since 1946 and are family owned and operated. Customers are treated as neighbors.
Days / Hours of Operation: Monday through Saturday 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Directions: Frank’s Fisherman Supply is convenient to Fisherman’s Wharf parking lots and public transit. For more information, please visit the Parking or Public Transit pages.

Unique images of time
Directions: Ghirardelli Square is located at 900 North Point Street between Beach and Larkin Streets. It is near the west end of Fisherman’s Wharf, two blocks east of Van Ness Avenue and one block west of the Cable Car turnaround at Beach and Hyde Streets.

Souvenirs and other unique gifts.
Directions: Guardino’s Souvenir and Gift Shop is convenient to Fisherman’s Wharf parking lots and public transit. For more information, please visit the Parking or Public Transit pages.

Arts and crafts, new designer and vintage clothing
Directions: Ghirardelli Square is located at 900 North Point Street between Beach and Larkin Streets. It is near the west end of Fisherman’s Wharf, two blocks east of Van Ness Avenue and one block west of the Cable Car turnaround at Beach and Hyde Streets.

Find something for everyone Clothing to fit your style…the choice is yours. A wide selection of souvenirs so you remember your stay in San Francisco
Directions: Enter the Anchorage Square garage at 500 Beach Street at Jones. Park for only $3 for the first hour with validation of purchase. You can also take the cable car to the Hyde Street turnaround, which is just a block away. Or hop aboard a vintage “F” line streetcar and get off right near our door.

Musical instruments and recordings from the world over; artwork of musical subjects; books, videos and instruction.
Days / Hours of Operation: Open daily, with hours that vary by season.
Directions: Full-service restaurants and most retail stores provide validations for parking discounts at The Anchorage Shopping Center Garage, located just one half block from THE CANNERY at 500 Beach Street. Please visit THE CANNERY website for directions and public transit information.

Gifts and accessories for the left-handed.
Days / Hours of Operation: Open daily. Hours of operation vary by season. Please check the PIER 39 website for details at http://www.pier39.com
Directions:
Parking is conveniently located in the PIER 39 Garage directly across from the Entrance Plaza. For directions, please visit http://www.pier39.com/LocateUs/directionsparking.htm. PIER 39 is convenient to several public transit options, including the F Line and Muni bus routes #19, #15, #39)

Cable car and San Francisco themed souvenirs
Directions: Ghirardelli Square is located at 900 North Point Street between Beach and Larkin Streets. It is near the west end of Fisherman’s Wharf, two blocks east of Van Ness Avenue and one block west of the Cable Car turnaround at Beach and Hyde Streets.

Lola of North Beach
Location: Ghirardelli Square
Address: 900 North Point Street, West Plaza
Cross Street(s): At Beach Street

Stationery and gift items
Directions: Ghirardelli Square is located at 900 North Point Street between Beach and Larkin Streets. It is near the west end of Fisherman’s Wharf, two blocks east of Van Ness Avenue and one block west of the Cable Car turnaround at Beach and Hyde Streets.

The best and widest selection of unique magnets—by popular vote. Great home and gift ideas plus service as outstanding as our magnets
Days / Hours of Operation: Open daily from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Directions: Enter the Anchorage Square garage at 500 Beach Street at Jones. Park for only $3 for the first hour with validation of purchase. You can also take the cable car to the Hyde Street turnaround, which is just a block away. Or hop aboard a vintage “F” line streetcar and get off right near our door.

A whole company of fun
Days / Hours of Operation: Hours of operation vary by season. Please check the PIER 39 website for details at http://www.pier39.com
Directions:
Parking is conveniently located in the PIER 39 Garage directly across from the Entrance Plaza. For directions, please visit http://www.pier39.com/LocateUs/directionsparking.htm. PIER 39 is convenient to several public transit options, including the F Line and Muni bus routes #19, #15, #39)

Authentic Russian crafts & collectibles.
Directions: Full-service restaurants and most retail stores provide validations for parking discounts at The Anchorage Shopping Center Garage, located just one half block from THE CANNERY at 500 Beach Street. Please visit THE CANNERY website for directions and public transit information.

Music Boxes
Directions: Ghirardelli Square is located at 900 North Point Street between Beach and Larkin Streets. It is near the west end of Fisherman’s Wharf, two blocks east of Van Ness Avenue and one block west of the Cable Car turnaround at Beach and Hyde Streets.

Casual Apparel for Men, Women & Children
Days / Hours of Operation: Open daily. Hours of operation vary by season. Please check the PIER 39 website for details.
Directions: PIER 39 has convenient visitor parking in the PIER 39 Garage, located directly across the street from the Entrance Plaza.

Directions: For the Anchorage Square location, enter the Anchorage Square garage at 500 Beach Street at Jones. Park for only $3 for the first hour with validation of purchase. You can also take the cable car to the Hyde Street turnaround, which is just a block away. Or hop aboard a vintage “F” line streetcar and get off right at our door.

World’s Foremost Marine Life Artist & Select Artists
Days / Hours of Operation: Open daily. Hours of operation vary by season. Please check the PIER 39 website for details.
Directions: PIER 39 has convenient visitor parking in the PIER 39 Garage, located directly across the street from the Entrance Plaza.

Yap Wraps, Le Pooch Couture
Directions: Ghirardelli Square is located at 900 North Point Street between Beach and Larkin Streets. It is near the west end of Fisherman’s Wharf, two blocks east of Van Ness Avenue and one block west of the Cable Car turnaround at Beach and Hyde Streets.

Wonderful paintings by local artists.
Directions: Enter the Anchorage Square garage at 500 Beach Street at Jones. Park for only $3 for the first hour with validation of purchase. You can also take the cable car to the Hyde Street turnaround, which is just a block away. Or hop aboard a vintage “F” line streetcar and get off right at our door.

Winery Collective is the first multi-winery tasting room and wine store in San Francisco focused on boutique wineries unique to California. Come meet wine makers, explore over 50 different wines, and experience wine country across California from the Napa Valley to Santa Barbara right in the heart of San Francisco.
Days / Hours of Operation: Open daily 11:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. and later in peak season. For more information please click here.
Directions: Take the Cable Car to Hyde Street turnaround and walk 1/2 block to Jefferson Street and turn right. Or hop aboard a vintage F line streetcar and get off at Jones & Jefferson Streets and walk one block down just past THE CANNERY.

Wine tasting by the glass.
Days / Hours of Operation: Open daily. Hours of operation vary by season. Please check the PIER 39 website for details at http://www.pier39.com
Directions:
Parking is conveniently located in the PIER 39 Garage directly across from the Entrance Plaza. For directions, please visit http://www.pier39.com/LocateUs/directionsparking.htm. PIER 39 is convenient to several public transit options, including the F Line and Muni bus routes #19, #15, #39)

AFL is legally registered in
Egypt since 1997,
the company has retained
a wealth of experience
that goes with
15 years of business
experience with
expert team of freight
AFL are specialized in air
and ocean freight offering
services to importers and
exporters to and from all
international sea and
airport worldwide.
AFL are committed to
customer satisfaction;
offers reliable, flexible
and professionalized
service.

As a specialist we provide the expertise to handle shipments that can be difficult because of size or destination. We can arrange collection, documentation and Airfreight through all major passenger and all cargo airlines. Where appropriate AFL will arrange for goods to be inspected prior to departure.

There is no formal size and weight restriction. If it can be moved by air AFL will make the arrangements on behalf of you or your customer.

SEA

AFL Ocean Services provides total control over your ocean freight movements into, out of, and around Egypt.

AFL can arrange for sea freight movements from allover the world full containers (FCL), part loads (LCL.

We have an International Network of Freight Partners able to assist us with Door to Door Transportation, Logistics and Customs Clearance.

AFL will look after the collection, documentation and dispatch to destination port.

DOOR TO DOOR:
This service involves some aspects of Logistics Transportation (total shipping). Your goods are picked up at your overseas location/suppliers warehouse and shipped to Egypt. Company representatives supervise customs clearance and delivery to your door.

CUSTOMS BROKERAGE SERVICE:

This involves processing all relevant customs documents. Liaison with Government Agencies to facilitate efficient clearance of your cargo on time.
SHIPPING CONSULTANTS:

We work together with you, advising you about shipping solutions that best meet with your requirements. We track all commercial consignment from point of origin to point of delivery. This ensures that goods shipped arrive on time.

Our team consists of resourceful and experienced individuals with extensive knowledge of shipping.

– Flexible Shipping Arrangement – to facilitate customs clearance, we are able to meet customer’s requirement on how they want the airway bill to be prepared at the origin country such as:

– No value declared on the airway bill
– No freight charges shown on the airway bill – only As Arranged .
– Customer can choose the carrier or airline they want.
– Customer can dictate the kind of commodity they want us to declare on the

airway bill.
– Pick-up of cargoes from the shipper’s location at the origin country.
– Pre-Alert Notification Service – we can advise consignee in advance about their

shipments before it actually arrives in Cairo.
– Free delivery of Inbound airway bills to consignee or broker upon arrival.
– Door-to-Door service when required.
– Other service requirements

Q: After reading about the mess surrounding the Tasini decision, I’m confused. If I want to sell a story or article to a magazine to print one time after which all rights revert to me, should I sell first North American serial rights or first North American print rights? -Steve

A: Before I begin to attack this one, let me qualify the answer by saying I’m not an attorney. So I’ll take my best stab at it and then recommend a couple of places you might want to research before signing anything.

In the Tasini decision you mention, the Supreme Court ruled against The New York Times and others in their claim that in paying for first North American serial rights they automatically acquired the right to publish work electronically for profit with no additional compensation for the writer. This means writers may now sell electronic rights as separate from print rights, the upshot being they can earn more money for their work (in being fairly compensated). But what you also find is publishers specifying in contracts that they lump print and electronic rights together.

Generally, yes, I recommend in whatever contract you’re signing that you reserve the right to be paid additionally if the publisher is going to use your work electronically for profit. The growth of electronic publishing has seriously complicated the serialization issue, so for more information (you don’t want legal advice from a liberal arts major, anyway) I suggest you check out a few different Web sites.

First, intellectual property law attorney Ivan Hoffman is very active in posting information on the Internet related to this issue, and you’d do well to check out his site. There is also a great deal of information on the subject on the National Writers Union and The Authors Guild. Lastly, to be certain of what rights you’re selling and what you’re retaining with any given contract, it would be a good idea to have an attorney review it before you sign.

VIENNA, June 29 (Xinhua) — The 42nd Session of UN Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) opened here Monday, with finalizing and adopting the UNCITRAL Notes on cooperation, communication and coordination in cross-border insolvency proceedings high on its agenda.

These documents are aimed at providing practical guidance for practitioners and judges on cooperation and communication in cross-border insolvency cases.

The session, which is to last till July 17, will also discuss such issues as progress towards revision of the 1994 Model Law on Procurement of Goods, Construction and Services, preparation of the Annex to the Legislative Guide on Secured Transactions.

Progress on monitoring implementation of the 1958 New York Convention, the status and promotion of UNCITRAL legal texts, technical cooperation and assistance to law reform and working methods of UNCITRAL will also be discussed.

The Commission is expected to consider and recommend the use in international trade of the 2007 revision of the Uniform Customs and Practice for documentary credit (UCP 600) adopted by the International Chamber of Commerce.

The UNCITRAL is the core legal body of the United Nations system in the field of international trade law. Currently it has 60 members who are elected by the United Nations General Assembly.

Its mandate is to remove legal obstacles to international trade by progressively modernizing and harmonizing trade law by such measures as preparing legal texts and providing technical assistance to law reform activities.
Editor: Mo Hong’e

more “Contrary to the request of the Board of Governors and the Security Council, Iran has not suspended its enrichment related activities, or its work on heavy water related projects” IAEA DG ElBaradei’s latest statement said. Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant is a symbol of cooperation between Iran and Russia once said Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Ali Hosseini. Indeed, like Russia, the Bushehr power plant (+Natanz) is the heart of Iran’s nuclear ambitions and constitutes its best asset to access nuclear energy and to build military nukes, according to the West. In 1995, the Russian company named Atomstroyexport signed a contract to complete the plant since Germany discontinued its participation after the Islamic revolution in 1979.

The Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant has the capacity of producing one thousand mega watts of electricity (500 in a first stage) and its reactor uses light water. On December 2008, an IAEA report confirmed that Iran increased the number of its operating centrifuges in Natanz from 3,800 to 5,000. Deputy head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization Mohammad Saeedi said the job would be completed and that the Bushehr plant would become operational in 2009. Last November, the Russian Federation notified the UNSC Committee of supplies it had delivered for the light water reactor at Bushehr. Group 5+1 – China, France, Germany, Russian Federation, United Kingdom and United States – posed suspension of enrichment of uranium by Iran as a precondition for starting negotiation. Iran always refused and argued such a precondition violates its sovereignty and that its nuclear program is for peaceful purpose.

The views expressed in the weekly letter do not necessarily reflect those of ISRIA which does not advocate any specific opinion.

***

Designed to save the user time by highlighting critical information, Monitor Pack rises above the crowd of algorithm-driven data sorting services: Monitor Pack is a true information monitoring and reporting service, sorted and published by professional analysts trained to find and deliver the right information quickly.

“ISRIA’s Monitor Pack puts up-to-the-minute geopolitical news at the service of our users,” Rault explained. “Our service consists of a combination of proprietary information and public domain information, chosen for maximum relevance.”

Founded in Paris in 2004, ISRIA is a consulting and information publishing service. The firm’s consulting arm (http://www.isria.com) focuses on information analysis, research and global intelligence. ISRIA’s Monitor Pack provides daily open source intelligence, public domain and diplomatic materials on geopolitical, security and world politics issues. ISRIA analysts are based around the globe, including in the U.S.

ISRIA Monitor Pack subscriptions are available to individuals, information centers and organizations; the solution can be scaled to meet specific needs. For more complex intelligence needs, the company is available on a consulting basis. ISRIA is currently seeking to partner with publications interested in offering current and future readers with special joint offers. To learn more, visit http://www.isria.com

http://www.aboutus.org/Isria.com
ISRIA – International Security Research & Intelligence Agency – Consulting agency specialized in monitoring and analysis of information. – Online publishing agency with its Monitor Pack, a complete online monitoring of International Security and World Politics.
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Your source for International Security ; ISRIA is known for its monitoring of international affairs especially in the field of foreign affairs and security. It provides individuals, companies and institutions with global and/or specific monitoring and analysis services. Its grand public online product is known as the Monitor Pack, a leading online service for anyone interested in international relations, security and politics.

Monitor Pack provides daily open source intelligence, public domain and diplomatic materials on geopolitical, security and world politics issues. ISRIA’s analysts select the most interesting and the most relevant for you and make it accessible from one website. Anyone can subscribe to its Weekly Report for free which represents just a fraction of the materials available every day to members. Subscribers also get access to weekly Russia Report and China Report.
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If Kosovo was selected to be the staging post for the launch of international terrorism in the Balkans, then Chechnya is the equivalent in the Caucasus. With [outside] assistance, enforced on the population of this Russian republic has been created an anti-people, anti-constitutional, criminal regime…a criminal-terrorist enclave.

This has generated a qualitatively new threat … to national and international security, stability and the general peace. Today Russia stands square on to the threat in the North Caucasus, defending not only its territorial integrity and sovereignty, the law and freedom of its citizens, but also Europe, and the whole world from the strengthening criminal-terrorist abyss.

The men who are literally in the front line waging Russia’s present counter-terrorist campaign are operating from the North Caucasus Military District (MD), Russia’s main guarantor of her security interests in the south. Not enjoying the easiest of times in 1994-1996 during the first Chechen War, Russia seems to have got things more right than wrong in this second military campaign in the region. Some of the reasons for this lie in the changes which have taken place both within this frontline military district and in the representative structures and units of the other power ministries based there. This paper examines those changes which took place within the MD during 1996-1999 and assesses their effectiveness in the light of the Chechen campaign. It is subdivided into a number of sections, including an overview of the relevant experience of the first Chechen war; the general military reform process and its impact on the MD; the level of mutual training between the units of the power ministries based in the MD. It is hoped that the reader will gain a more comprehensive picture of exactly how the North Caucasus MD prepared for its second military campaign in the Caucasus in the space of 5 years.

The Experience of the 1994-1996 First Chechen War

In early 1998, two Russian Lieutenant-Colonels published a detailed review of recent (1986-1996) military involvement in internal conflicts in USSR/Russia. They listed a total of 16 instances (10 in the period 1986-1991 and 6 in the post-Soviet period) when the central political power in Moscow felt it necessary to introduce troops onto the streets of the country’s cities and towns. Using four separate categories to gauge the effectiveness of the country’s Armed Forces – cessation of disorder ; reduction in tension ; regularisation and localisation of conflict – as well as a points system (0 representing no success; 1 partial success and 3 total success) – the authors reasoned that only one operation – that carried out in the Kirghiz cities of Osh, Kara-Suu and Uzgen in June 1990 – could be labelled a great success. Using their methodology, three operations were deemed to have been a total failure : Tbilisi, April 1989; Vilnius, January 1990 and, not surprisingly, Chechnya, December 1994-August 1996. Their assessment of the current counter-terrorist operation in the North Caucasus is not yet known, but one can assume that it would be classed either as enjoying certain limited success , or be placed in the slightly higher category, use of troops justified itself. Certainly, in comparison with the first Chechen war, at least militarily, the current campaign cannot be classed as a a total failure , although how successful the politicians will be in securing both long-term peace and stability for the region is impossible to say at present.

Thus, the assumption must be that Russia’s senior political and military figures did learn from the first Chechen War and did put into effect a number of changes, at least at a local level, designed to ensure that the Russian Armed Forces did not repeat the mistakes of 1994-1996. There can be very little doubt that the experience accumulated as a result of the first Chechen War was collated and analysed with a view not only, for instance, to strengthening the cooperation and interaction between the various power ministries, both locally and nationally, but also a determination to restore Moscow’s writ in the republic at the earliest possible date. After all, Chechnya in 1994-1996 proved that there was a very real internal threat to the Russian Federation and the response of the power ministries was less than adequate, to put it mildly. Moscow is also very aware of the strategic and economic importance of the region to Russia and is determined to maintain its presence in the region, by force of arms if needs be. Nor will it brook outside interference in what it considers to be a region of vital national importance.

Even before the first Chechen War had fully run its course, it was obvious that changes were going to be made, especially in relation to the North Caucasus MD, in order to take into account the immediate combat experience of the troops on the ground. In May 1996, in an interview with Interfax, the then Russian Minister of Defence, General P Grachev, made it clear that the military experience of Chechnya would be used to re-model the Army, especially those units in the North Caucasus MD:
Units in the North Caucasus Military District will be restructured on the basis of the experience of military actions conducted in Chechnya…the need has emerged to form infantry units and airborne assault units capable of fighting in the mountains, and airborne assault units to be dropped from helicopters in unfamiliar localities. The special rapid deployment units will also undergo some changes.
Grachev also pointed out that one of the main problems facing the Armed Forces in the war in Chechnya was the Army’s lack of experience in seizing towns: Besieging towns and preparing to take them by storm in one’s own country was very hard from the psychological point of view. Judging from reports concerning the latest military campaign in the Caucasus, the seizing of towns would appear to have become less of a problem for the Russian Armed Forces.

In a more detailed report, published at the end of May 1996, concerning the impact of the overall reform of the Armed Forces, as well as the war in Chechnya, Grachev spoke about the essentially newly-created forces of the Moscow and the North Caucasus Military Districts , as well as the operational training which had taken place during the winter of 1995, when attention was focussed on the study and tactical analysis of questions concerning the settlement of military conflicts of various sizes , involving not only the MoD, but also the Border Guards Service, MVD’s Interior Troops and the troops of the Ministry of Emergencies. Noting the resignation of Major-General Kondrat’yev as Commander of Operational Group of Forces (Chechnya), Grachev spoke about the unjustifiable losses due to insufficient attention being paid by the Commander to the experience of the war in Afghanistan.

A further sign of change in the MD was Grachev’s announcement in the article that all Federal forces not previously belonging to the North Caucasus MD were to be moved out of the MD by 1st August 1996, thus effectively signalling the beginning of the end of the military campaign in the region. Of course, by the time the deadline was due to be reached, Grachev was no longer Russia’s Minister of Defence, replaced by Colonel-General I Rodionov in July 1996. One of the reasons behind the downfall of Russia’s best ever Minister of Defence was Grachev’s handling of the war in Chechnya (indeed in an interview of the new Minister of Defence, Rodionov bluntly stated that military activities [in Chechnya] were initiated with bad preparation and bad planning ). On too many occasions, Grachev had the bad habit of not living up to his boasts. Although it would be unfair to blame Grachev wholly for the low combat capability of the Russian Army, nevertheless his poor handling of the war in Chechnya – along with growing allegations of corruption and even the possibility of his role in murder – was an important reason in Yel’tsin’s decision to sack him.

Rodionov was a very different kind of man to Grachev. Formerly Commander of 40th Army in Afghanistan when, according to one source, military activity was at its highest but losses of both men and material were at their lowest, Rodionov’s most recent appointment had been Chief of the General Staff’s Military Academy. As such, he had written widely on reform of the Armed Forces and the general nature of war. In relation to developments closer to home, ie the recent experience of the Chechen War, Rodionov in a TV interview broadcast in early September 1996, made it clear that the troops from the North Caucasus MD would be a permanent fixture in Chechnya:
Defence Minister Igor Rodionov said today that units of the North Caucasus Military District would be permanently based in Chechnya. Only the troops that, in the minister’s words, were providing temporary military assistance there will leave the republic.
In the same interview, Rodionov also revealed that, in his opinion, the fighting in Chechnya would go on for a very long time, perhaps for years, perhaps for a decade and that the Russian forces based there would have to be careful not to give in to revenge or provocations .

Thus, not only was the new Minister of Defence unconvinced about the settlement negotiated between A Maskhadov and A Lebed at Khasavyurt in the previous month, but he also saw the need for a permanent Russian military presence in the region, made up of units supplied from the North Caucasus MD. At this point, it should be noted that thanks to the war in Chechnya, the North Caucasus MD had now effectively been re-designated as one of Russia’s frontline MDs. Gone were the days when service in the MD was viewed as a relatively easy number, due to the temperance of the climate, the fact that, during the Soviet period, there was little inter-ethnic tension, its borders were stable. Now, tension in the region was high and the MD was in the forefront of protecting Russia’s geostrategic interests in the south.

The importance of the MD, as well as the continued anxiety over Russia’s position in the south, was emphasised by a leaked report of a session of Russia’s Security Council, held on 28th November 1996:
Ivan Rybkin, secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation and Igor Rodionov, defence minister of the Russian Federation, discussed creating a reinforced North Caucasus Military District group using the 101st Brigade of Interior Troops of the Interior Ministry and 205th Brigade of the defence ministry.
Curiously enough, the 205th Motor Rifle Brigade had come in for some criticism a couple of months earlier, in an article examining the overall failure of the Russian Army’s military campaign in Chechnya:
Another reason for the Russian Army’s failures in Chechnya can be considered the familiar and ineradicable disorder in the troops and the lack of a precise structure, line of control and even information about the whereabouts at any given moment in time about any unit. Many officers cannot understand the previously unseen structure of the 205th Motor Rifle Brigade which is to be permanently based in Chechnya. It consists of the Separate 204th Regiment and several battalions and companies. Leaving aside the fact that there has never been such an ‘organism’ in the Army before – some personnel do not know to whom it is directly subordinate and who is its higher command. Formally, the brigade is part of 58 Army, North Caucasus MD and, obviously, should be subordinate to its leadership. On the other hand, 205th is under the command of the temporary combined forces in Chechnya, represented by deputy commander North Caucasus MD, Vladimir Tikhomirov and Konstantin Pulikovskiy, in other words, a higher command and control structure.
The confusion over issues of command and control of the Federal grouping in Chechnya during the first Chechen War was symptomatic, not only of poor leadership during the campaign itself, but also of poor cooperation (vzaimodeystviye) between the various units of the power ministries operating in Chechnya at that time, particularly between the MoD and the Interior Ministry (MVD). As will be detailed below, this has been an area, both nationally and within the North Caucasus MD, that has attracted a great deal of attention since 1996 and one which, despite some success, has still not been fully resolved. In an early evaluation of the role of the Russian Army in the first Chechen war, one Russian analyst was acutely aware of the impact of poor coordination between the activities of the units of the power ministries:
Finally, one of the most important reasons for the failure of the Federal Group of Forces in Chechnya was the lack of cooperation between units of different departments. There has already been much talk about the complicated relations between units of the MoD and the MVD. Their history began back during the New Year’s assault on Groznyy in 1994, when columns of the two departments advancing along parallel streets did not have a unified command or communications, and that is why, occasionally, shells would hit friendly troops … Both Army units and MVD units believe that they alone were bearing the main burden of the war and that the ‘services’ of the competitors [my emphasis – SJM] consisted of running away from the battlefield.
Thus not only did the MoD and MVD units not cooperate, but this could have disastrous consequences for their men on the ground. It was more than just a problem of making sure, for instance, that the units involved could actually talk to one another, quite literally through the supply of the same portable radio equipment, but that there was a culture at work which saw the units not even in healthy competition with one another, but more importantly, a competition which denigrated the role of one unit in comparison with another, thereby leading to feelings of contempt and mistrust.

In short, by the end of 1996, a number of changes were either being put into effect, or were in the pipeline, to harbour the experience of the first Chechen War in preparation for the future. The first Chechen War proved to be the strongest indication yet of how ineffective the Russian Armed Forces had become since the collapse of the USSR in 1991. The decision to permanently base units from the North Caucasus MD in Chechnya was also a sign that Russia was serious in its desire to maintain its military hold on the region, a clear signal that whilst in some respects it had lost the war in Chechnya, its defeat was one that was not irreversible. The reform of the North Caucasus MD, as well as of Armed Forces, would gather pace; 1997-1998 were in many respects decisive in preparing for Russia’s return to military action in August 1999.

Reform and the North Caucasus MD (1997-1999)

One of the more concrete aspects of military reform to hit the Caucasus region was the decision to disband the Transcaucasus Group of Forces in March 1997 and replace it with the Group of Russian Forces (Transcaucasus). This was more than simply a change of name: according to one report, it meant a reduction in the number of personnel by 70%, as well as the withdrawal of military hardware from a number of Russian bases in Georgia. The new group was to be subordinated to the command of the North Caucasus MD (still under the command of Colonel-General A Kvashnin) and the regional branches of a number of the intelligence directorates were moved from Tbilisi to Rostov, HQ of the North Caucasus MD. All in all, this was an enforced measure, as much to do with economic necessity as any significant change in strategic thinking – on paper, in 1997, Russia’s defence budget allocation was 3.83% of GNP. In fact, the MoD only received 2.71% of GNP that year, less than in 1996, 1995, 1994.

In a keynote address to a meeting of Heroes of the Soviet Union/Russian Federation, held in June 1997, the new Minister of Defence, Colonel-General Igor Sergeyev, outlined what he considered to be the main structural reforms for the Russian Armed Forces in the immediate future, including what he called the units of the future :
We will manage to gain time and turn it from an enemy into an ally only by focussing our main efforts on the conservation of combat-ready units and formations with a well-developed infrastructure and modern weapons and combat equipment which confirm their combat capability in practice. As early as 1998, it is planned to create three or four ‘units of the future’, with one in the east of the country, one in the North Caucasus Military District and two in the Moscow Military District.
In a TV interview, Sergeyev elaborated on what these units of the future would look like:
[they will be] highly mobile formations, having a modular structure, which will be equipped, or will start to be equipped, first and foremost, with modern weapons and equipment.
A Kvashnin’s appointment to the post of Acting Chief of the General Staff in May 1997 left the position of Commander of the North Caucasus MD vacant, but not for long. By presidential decree, dated 29th July 1997, the MD’s First Deputy Commander, Lieutenant-General V G Kazantsev was promoted to MD Commander, Lieutenant-General N Troshev, 58 Army Commander, being appointed to the post of First Deputy Commander of the MD on the same date. Both men had seen service in the first Chechen War and no doubt had their own views on what went right and, more importantly, what went wrong with the conduct of operations then. It was also important that the soon to be confirmed Chief of the General Staff, Kvashnin, had been Kazantsev’s immediate superior when both men served in the North Caucasus MD in 1996-1997. It is extremely unlikely that Kazantsev would have obtained such an important position without Kvashnin’s approval. Certainly, in the words of one experienced military commentator, the appointment of Kazantsev was heavily linked with the whole reform process of the Armed Forces:
One thing is certain for sure: in reforming the District, Kazantsev has been promised the support of the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Colonel-General Anatoliy Kvashnin. They served together almost 1½ years and, without Kvashnin’s recommendation, Kazantsev would not have been able to occupy the vacant post in Rostov-on-Don.
The article also pointed out that Kazantsev had two main tasks to perform as MD Commander:
[Kazantsev must] be ready to stop the sorties by the bandit formations … whilst, at the same time, carry out a thorough re-organisation of the MD itself where, according to the plan of military reform, will be concentrated the main strike force of the Russian Army’s Ground Forces.
These were two very clear and distinct aims, but by no means mutually exclusive: reform of the MD, building partly on a careful study of the first Chechen War, would mean making it more difficult for the bandit formations to operate within the territory of the MD. Kazantsev was appointed to the post as MD Commander not simply because he knew Kvashnin personally or because he had a reasonably good war in the first military campaign in Chechnya, but also because long before the first shots had been fired in the first Chechen War, he knew the area well, having served just under 10 years in the Transcaucasus MD.

It was not long before the recently-appointed Minister of Defence paid a working visit to the North Caucasus MD, on 22nd-23rd August 1997. Sergeyev flew down to Vladikavkaz, as opposed to Rostov-on-Don, in order to see for himself a training exercise on the Tarsk mountain exercise range, where the men taking part had to operate in mountain-forested terrain. Despite the severe under-funding of the Armed Forces, according to the newspaper report of Sergeyev’s visit, the fact that such an exercise was being held at all was indicative of the renewed emphasis being placed by the MoD on the financing of military training for the Armed Forces: For the first time in a long time in 1997, about 10% of the funds allocated to the military budget are being directed to military training.

This was one of the first exercises to take place after the decision to grant the control structures in the MDs the status of territorial commands, ie all the troops of the power ministries operating within the confines of each district were placed under one command, namely the MD Commander. This was designed to create one fist , each unit to work in close coordination with every other unit. To that end, commanders, deputy commanders and representatives of units and formations of the Interior Troops and FPS [Federal Border Guard Service] attended the exercise. That may well have been the case, but there is no mention in the report of Interior Ministry or FPS units being used in the exercise, training alongside their brothers-in-arms from the Ministry of Defence. This was the first exercise of its type held in the MD under the direct command of Kazantsev in his new role as Commander and was, in overall terms, highly praised by Sergeyev:
I would like to single out the well-coordinated nature of the troops in solving the most complicated problems. To no small extent, this was due to the work of the MD Commander, Lieutenant-General Viktor Germanovich Kazantsev, who had a firm grasp of every detail … Once again, were are convinced how difficult this profession is – that of being an officer of the Ground Forces. I feel, though, that the commanders here are not novices. They are people who have been through a lot.
So many officers and men excelled themselves that at the end of the exercise, Sergeyev wanted to award the best commander’s watches ; unfortunately, there were not enough to go round, so a number of the generals and officers accompanying Sergeyev took off their own and gave them to the Minister, so enabling him to reward all those who had stood out

Not long after the August exercise, Kazantsev outlined his own views on how the reform process would affect his district:
During the reform process, the quality of the formations and units will increase sharply … for example, let’s take a motor rifle division. In the future, it will have paratroopers. Then will appear helicopters and flame throwers. As a result, the mobility of the motor rifle unit will increase.
In this context, he also spoke about increasing the technical capabilities of the units, as well as improving their rear support facilities:
All this, it goes without saying, compels us now to think seriously about improving the quality of field training, imparting to the officers a love for method [metodika] which, at the end of the day, raises the military preparation of the units and formations to a qualitatively new level.
This was how Kazantsev saw the immediate future for the reform of the troops under his direct command up until the year 2001. In the post-2001 period, Kazantsev saw the emphasis being placed on changing the functions of the commands of the air army, air defence corps, airborne units deployed on the territory of the MD, thus, not only will the control of the troops be improved, but so will increase significantly the combat, manoeuvrable possibilities of the units and formations.

Kazantsev’s views on the way ahead for his own MD were very definite, with great emphasis on increasing the mobility and firepower of the units. Not surprisingly, this was very much in line with Sergeyev’s thinking on the future of the Armed Forces, with further emphasis being placed on improving their quality. Given also the renewed emphasis on training, one can see early signs that the troops of the North Caucasus MD were being steadied for what was to come. As Kazantsev noted in the interview:
The main task for us today is to improve the military training of the troops. And this presupposes quality training of the personnel, beginning with the command of the district and ending with the units.
On increased cooperation with the other units of the power ministries, Kazantsev stated bluntly:
The President of Russia, as Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, has demanded from us readiness for action in cooperation with the interior troops in emergency situations including armed conflict on the territory of the district [emphasis mine – SJM]. In connection with this, we have a number of units on combat alert.
In conclusion, Kazantsev once again underlined the importance of training for the future:
Simply, it is obvious, everyone must understand that we cannot live according to the old ways. The leadership of the district understands this. The main thing now is to study under the new conditions how to organise combat training exercises directly amongst the units.
Kazantsev had outlined the future direction of the reform process to be adopted in the MD – greater emphasis on training and field exercises (reminding one of Suvorov’s famous dictum teach the soldier what he needs to know to fight a war ); creation of more mobile units, with more of their own independent means of fire support; greater interaction with interior troops in particular but, by extension, all other uniformed units deployed in the MD and, finally, improving the controllability (upravlyayemost’) of all sections of the MD’s apparatus, from HQ downwards.

One aspect of the reform that was not to everyone’s liking was to become fairly obvious not long after the publication of Kazantsev’s interview. This was the reduction in the number of officers and NCOs required by the MD to carry out its new responsibilities. In a press conference conducted towards the end of September 1997, Kazantsev admitted that the MD was set to lose some 15,000 officers and men by 1st November that year:
We are developing units that are mobile and have the latest word in military equipment, commanded by highly-skilled officers and stripped of unnecessary administrative staff and other surplus fat at headquarters … the point of the reform is not only to save money … in the past few years, the North Caucasus Military District has evolved into a border district with an entirely new set of duties dictated by Russia’s present-day geopolitical situation and the state of affairs in the North Caucasus. To be able to perform these new duties, the command structure is being changed and the range of equipment available is being expanded. The district’s units now have every type of modern tank artillery [sic] … this makes it possible to form units that are radically different in structure and in combat potential – they have fewer men but incomparably greater firepower and better defence against incoming fire.
Kazantsev also spoke about cooperation with other branches of the Armed Forces, as well as with units from the other ministries:
Officer training now pays particular attention to interaction with all the other branches of the armed forces including army air power … this forms the basis for all the district’s exercises, with the involvement as well of Interior Ministry troops and border guards. We already have experience of such exercises and will continue to rely on them in the future.
Finance was to rear its ugly head again in the MD somewhat less predictably, when ransoms were demanded for the release of 6 officers kidnapped by Chechens in September-October 1997. A ransom of $150,000 each was demanded from the authorities. Kazantsev made a direct personal appeal to President Maskhadov and managed to secure the prompt release of two of the officers; using, in his own words, exactly the same method , he was hopeful to secure the release of the other four men.

Kazantsev also pointed out that, despite the reduction in the numbers of officers and men in the MD – here put at 12,500, not 15,000 as earlier – they were being strengthened through the acquisition of new military technology . Interestingly, he also spoke about the need for the Army to have an ideology, a Russian path for the construction of modern armed forces : it is enough that we adopted an Americanised variant of the form. Now, we are suffering. As regards his own units, he singled out the disreputable fame of the 205th Motor Rifle Brigade, in relation to its use of contract soldiers, as being another example of the inappropriateness of the American military system.

And yet, as was to be revealed in a later interview of the MD’s First Deputy Commander, Lieutenant-General G Troshev, contract soldiers made up between 20-30% of the total number of soldiers and sergeants of the MD by the beginning of 1998. Troshev touched on a whole series of matters concerning the future development of the troops in the MD, including military training and the creation of special alpine units. However, he began by making a number of introductory remarks concerning the recent past of the MD, as well as its contemporary status:
The North Caucasus MD has changed from being a central MD to a border MD. Its forces protect the south-western direction. The region is complex, the position here is explosive. This was once again demonstrated by recent events in Buynaksk [Chechen terrorist outrage] – even recently, there were no such barbaric attacks. As a result of this action, once again civilians suffered.
Troshev pointed out that the decision had been taken earlier to re-open the mountain training complex at Dar’yal, an important development given the fighting that was to come in 1999-2000:
In 1992, during the Osetian-Ingush conflict, the centre was destroyed, the territory was mined and for five years, it lay deserted. But, in 1997, the decision was taken to restore the centre. During September-November, it was restored and, as of 1st December, training has begun there. The test range is situated 1,500 metres above sea-level. There’s a tankodrome, a firing range and a ‘mountain village’. But its most distinguishing feature is that it is natural: natural precipices, gorges, mountain rivers, waterfalls.
In other words, the training here would be as close as possible to real conditions. Troshev also said that it was the MD’s intention to propose to the MoD that other units also make full use of the restored facilities on offer, not only the North Caucasus MD should train to carry out military actions in mountains. In terms of further specialisation of the MD’s troops, Troshev confirmed that it was training elite units of intelligence officers and special forces for operating in the mountains and affirmed that, in his opinion, in every unit , there should be a squad of men, better trained than the rest, to fight in the mountains.

Troshev also spoke about the deployment of one of the constant readiness units in the MD, namely the Volgograd division. In effect, this was a rapid reaction unit, designed to operate within a fairly short-time period:
In the 1998 training period, it will begin to train according to a new programme. All units and sections will be able in the shortest possible timescale to solve any military task. This will require well-trained personnel, which means training better officers, NCOs and junior specialists. The division will also need modern combat equipment and weapons, new rifles, new computerised communications system. Given the conditions of our district, all of this will have to work effectively in a mountainous environment. Such a division will have to be mobile, in its composition will be rapid reaction units, ready in a thirty-minute time frame to solve tasks in the same time as [the rest] of the unit is getting up.
In general, according to Troshev, in terms of manning levels, the MD was between 80-95% of full strength, with both intelligence and communication units being virtually at full strength, 95-100% . He admitted that there were problems with the officer corps due, in part, to the fall in the prestige of military service, as well as the fact that many officers were quitting the ranks simply out of economic necessity: irregular payment of salaries and the lure of better money elsewhere for considerably less dangerous work meant that many young officers with families had to think about a non-service career.

Other significant changes in the MD which Troshev was prepared to discuss publicly included the following:
The airborne assault brigade has been re-organised to become a regiment, the motor rifle brigade has been transformed into a regiment and become part of 19th Motor Rifle Division. We have also created two independent training battalions [to train] officers for the motor rifle regiments, tank commanders, BMP commanders … We are not waiting for someone else to train our cadres, we are doing it ourselves.
All these changes bear testimony to the fact that the MD was steadily putting into practice lessons learnt during the first Chechen War, but was also striving to make sure that past mistakes were not repeated. A visit by Colonel-General V Isakov (Chief of Rear Services, Armed Forces Russian Federation) in February 1998 concluded that:
Despite objective difficulties, as a whole the Rear Services of the district enable the troops stationed in the North Caucasus to successfully resolve any tasks placed before them.
However, the overall reform process meant that reductions in personnel would still have to take place, even in one of Russia’s frontline MDs. This was confirmed by Defence Minister Sergeyev’s two-day working visit to the MD, begun on 16th March 1998. In a statement to ITAR-TASS, Sergeyev confirmed that the reduction of army personnel envisaged by the military reform will take effect in the North Caucasus, as well. However, Sergeyev stated that the principle of combat effectiveness, rather than the number would be applied. In a more detailed report of his visit to the MD, the General put the cuts in manning in the North Caucasus MD in a wider context:
We have been forced to spend 90% of our funds on the upkeep of the troops. And there are virtually no funds left to renew equipment or do research and development … reform is, of course, also a quest for internal reserves … we need to get rid of everything that is superfluous and does not directly benefit combat training.
This must have been music to Kazantsev’s ears, in the sense that Sergeyev was making such a strong, pubic commitment to supporting the adequate financing of combat training. Whilst Sergeyev’s role in the first Chechen War was limited – at the time, he was C-in-C of Strategic Rocket Forces, as a professional military man, he would have been well aware of the shortcomings of the Russian Armed Forces in 1994-1996 and realised the importance of more effective combat training.

Whilst in Budennovsk, Sergeyev was also asked if the Army would assist the militia and the internal troops in the defence of the civilian population against terrorists. Sergeyev answered unequivocally: without any shadow of a doubt .
First of all, he [Sergeyev] told reporters that the military units in the North Caucasus Military District remain combat effective and will, as always, carry out both their army and police functions in the Caucasus in the defence of law and order and ensuring the safety of citizens, particularly in the areas bordering on Chechnya.

The agreements reached between the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Defence remain in force, but there are important changes being made in the North Caucasus Military District. The minister was particularly interested in two army brigades with the greatest strategic importance for security in the North Caucasus District, the 205th Motor Rifle Brigade and the 21st Special Cossack Assault Brigade, the only unit of its kind in Russia. The soldiers and officers in the latter have taken part in all the armed conflicts on the territory of Russia and the CIS.

Despite its military record, however, the Brigade was still going to be affected by the cuts: it was to change its designation from a Brigade to a Regiment, it was then to be subordinated to the 7th Novorossiysk Division but, even with the reduction in manpower, Sergeyev was keen to emphasise that its effectiveness was not going to be affected: It should be understood that the security of the residents of the North Caucasus republics will not suffer from the reforms.

Sergeyev’s two-day visit did not leave him particularly optimistic about the situation in Stavropol’ kray, however. This feeling of pessimism had less to do with the work being undertaken by the North Caucasus MD and more to do with the overall security situation in the region:
We consider the situation in the North Caucasus as under control, although we assess developments in individual areas as negative.
Not long after Sergeyev’s departure, another exercise was held in the MD involving a number of units, including Interior Ministry Troops, troops of the Ministry of Emergency Situations and Border Guards. Kazantsev was keen to downplay its aggressive intent in relation to Chechnya:
I want especially to stress that during the command and staff exercises, the power-wielding structures were not preparing either for a new escalation in the Chechen conflict or for a worsening of the criminal situation in Dagestan. What we were thoroughly working through here was operating against classical armies, not partisan detachments. The essence of the exercises is to offer moral support for efforts by diplomats, politicians and regional leaders engaged in seeking peace and accord in the Caucasus.
Whilst not wishing to cast aspersions on Kazantsev’s noble desire to assist the efforts of others to help build stability in the region, the statement that the exercise was operating on the principle of combating classical armies rings rather hollow. What classical armies had he in mind? Georgia’s? Azerbaijan’s? Some other army from the outside the region? The MD had changed in response to the changing nature of the internal threat to the Russian Federation. In many ways, prior to NATO enlargement in April 1999, the nature of the external threat (especially in relation to the Caucasus region) had not significantly changed. It was as it had been.

In an article commemorating the 80th anniversary of the creation of the North Caucasus MD, Kazantsev pointed out that then, as now, the main aim for our district, like 80 years ago, is to defend the territorial integrity of Russia in its southern borders. However, Kazantsev was much more keen to detail what was going on now and how things had changed recently:
In spite of the present situation in the region, we are constantly involved in a planned programme of combat training, as much as necessary, in order to ensure that the units and formations of the NCMD [North Caucasus Military District] are mobile and military capable. Today, on the Dar’yal test range, the only one of its type in the Armed Forces, not one day passes without military exercises taking place: firing, tactical exercises. Because, in my view, to train a real professional in mountain [warfare] you need at least two years.
The emphasis was also placed on training at least one smaller unit to be better equipped for fighting in the mountains:
We will strive to achieve a situation so that in every regiment there is a motor rifle battalion which has single-mindedly trained to operate in the mountains. In the future, we will instruct all regiments and brigades in the district in this.
Training was not just for the benefit of the units of the NCMD either, but also for the units of the Interior Ministry, the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the Border Guards, and so on. Kazantsev also made the interesting remark that there were fewer problems between units of the power ministries lower down the chain of command: the lower the level, the greater the mutual understanding.

Despite the attack on a vehicle convoy carrying a number of MD and General Staff officers in April 1998, Kazantsev, although condemning the attack as an insolent act planned by rebels , still adopted a fairly mild tone as regards possible future retaliation, saying that ways should be sought towards reconciliation, rather than taking steps towards a new confrontation. In the same interview to a local ITAR-TASS correspondent, Kazantsev confirmed that the numerical strength of the MD over the past two years had been cut by 7,500 men (so much for the original planned cut of 15,000), but said that the units of the NCMD had acquired a new higher level of combat readiness. He also repeated that the units and sub-units directly involved in carrying out training and combat tasks had been brought up to 95-100% of their strength , and what was fast becoming a mantra:
The task of the district’s troops is to protect Russia’s territorial integrity on its southern borders … therefore, the main attention is being paid to teaching personnel the skills needed in conditions of mountain and forest terrain.
A number of interesting developments took place in May/June 1998 concerning the situation in the North Caucasus, following renewed interest in the region shown by Moscow. On 12th May, it was announced by S Stepashin – Minister of Interior – that it had been decided to appoint the former C-in-C Interior Ministry Troops, Colonel-General L Shevtsov, to the recently-created post of Deputy MVD Minister with responsibility for the North Caucasus. According to Stepashin, he had decided to make more expedient use of the General’s service career (Shevtsov’s previous appointment was commander of the Russian contingent of troops in Bosnia-Herzegovina). This renewed interest was underlined by Yel’tsin’s decision (on 21st May) to create a special field team to deal with the situation in Dagestan. Headed by Stepashin, the team was to consist of the Ministers of Justice, Regional and Ethnic Policy and top security officials. On 25th May, the government went one stage further, when it announced that a special government body to normalise the situation in the North Caucasus was being created, headed by the Russian Deputy Prime Minister, V Khristenko. According to A Kokoshin, Secretary to the Security Council, the normalisation process would be achieved by socio-economic means :
It will be combined with a determination to use all the forces and means possessed by the state, including the federal and local authorities, in order to enforce law and order in the North Caucasus, especially in Dagestan.
Yel’tsin’s press secretary, S Yastrzhembskiy, stated that, at the same meeting, the Security Council had decided to strengthen the coordination of the power structures in the North Caucasus. At a meeting between Yel’tsin and Stepashin on 26th May, coordination in the North Caucasus was again discussed. After the meeting, Stepashin told journalists that tough coordination among the power structures is being established in the Caucasus, both from the point of view of interaction between them and the settlement of tasks which might be given to them in the future. He also mentioned the establishment of an emergency commission … in Stavropol’ … in charge of issues of coordination and ensuring security in the entire North Caucasus region. Unfortunately, no detail was published about the actual composition of the new body.

So within a month, according to available evidence, we have a special field team , a special government organ and now an emergency commission all tackling security issues in the North Caucasus Without more detail, it is impossible to say how they interacted with one another, if at all; who were the members; what was the representation of the MoD, MVD, FAPSI, etc, or even if they functioned at all. And to add even more to what was becoming a virtual alphabet soup of organs and commissions, on 6th June, a report carried by ITAR-TASS spoke about Stavropol’ having been chosen as the base for the Russian Interior Ministry’s Operations Centre. This was created to co-ordinate the efforts of all power-wielding structures in the North Caucasus region in the fight against terrorism, hostage-taking, armed banditry and other types of crime. As Deputy MVD Minister with responsibility for the North Caucasus, Shevtsov was placed in charge of the new regional staff HQ. In an interview he gave to the Interior Ministry’s main daily newspaper, Shevtsov spoke briefly about the general background and role of the organ:
In the North Caucasus, really, there are a large number of power structures. All decide equally important tasks, but separately. However, the practice of recent years has shown the necessity for a clearer and operationally co-ordinated effort of all the power ministries. With this in mind, the Operational staff, as a permanent working organ to lead the forces and means of the MVD, MoD, MChS [Ministry of Emergency Situations], FSB [Federal Security Service], FPS, FSZhV [Federal Railway Troops], FAPSI of Russia, has been brought into being.
Asked specifically why the MVD had been given the leadership (rukovodstvo) of the power structures in the region, Shevtsov replied: So decided the President of the Russian Federation. Correctly. You see because we are talking here about the internal security of the country, society and the citizen. He also mentioned that, despite the fact that the Operational staff had not existed for long, cooperation had improved between the power ministries in the region and that a number of small-scale operations, involving specialists from the Operational staff had been successful.

Throughout May-June 1998, thus, the central power in Moscow had embarked on a number of initiatives to improve the work and co-ordinate the activities of all the power ministry units operating in the North Caucasus region. The single most important organ created during this period – for the purposes of this paper – was the MVD’s Operational staff. It was given the primary task of assisting the coordination of activity of all the units in the region, including units of the MoD. In some respects, this would appear to have been a perfectly logical step; after all, the threat in the North Caucasus was of an internal nature and, as such, was the responsibility first and foremost of the MVD. However Interior Minister Stepashin stated that the existence of the Operational staff:
… does not signify that someone is preparing large-scale military activities. The situation in the North Caucasus urgently demands overcoming narrow departmental interests in the practical work of the force structures. The steps taken to maintain law and order and security in the region must be complex, worked out according to a plan encompassing the whole region led by the centre. We need to mobilise the intellectual, economic, ideological and law enforcement potential.
But the nature of the internal threat was changing, as was its scale. The events of August 1999-June 2000 showed that when it comes down to launching attacks against well-equipped and well-trained large illegal armed formations , the MVD’s response is limited, both in terms of training and equipment. This weakness had been acknowledged in the July 1998 Law on Terrorism, which gave a supporting role in countering terrorism to the MOD.

This role was further reinforced towards the end of July 1998, when Yel’tsin signed The Fundamentals (Concept) of State policy of the Russian Federation for Military Development in the Period up to the Year 2005. It represented the next formal step in reform of the nation’s Armed Forces and introduced a number of changes to the MD system in Russia.
The President of Russia, Boris Yel’tsin, has established a single system of military-administrative division of the territory of the Russian Federation into strategic directions: North-Western (within the borders of the Leningrad MD); Western (within the borders of Moscow MD); South-Western (within the borders of the North Caucasus MD); Central-Asian (within the borders of the Volga-Urals MD); Siberian (within the borders of the Siberian MD) and Far Eastern (within the borders of the Far Eastern MD).
The number of MDs was to be cut from 8 to 6, the new 6 being accorded the status of operational-strategic commands. What did this mean? In a major article published in the same month as Yel’tsin signed the Concept into law, Chief of the General Staff Kvashnin discussed what he thought the upgrade in the status of the MDs would mean to the country:
One important area of reform is the transition to the territorial principle of leadership of all troops and forces of the Russian Federation, with military districts being given the status of operational-strategic commands … the system of military administrative division of Russia’s territory is itself based on the territorial principle of subordination and control and its full implementation should make it possible to combine all branches of operational command and control of the power structures under a single figure [emphasis mine – SJM] … the substantial widening of the powers of the military district commander in peacetime pursues the following goals: improving the quality of planning of the use of the Armed Forces and other troops, military formations and organs of the Russian Federation in the interests of defence, as well as the organisation of collaboration, command and control and all-round support for them … improve the quality of operational and combat training measures for all troops.
This could be interpreted as a bid by the General Staff to exert control over the other men in uniform, operating within these newly-created operational-strategic commands. However, Kvashnin was alert to this possible interpretation and was quick to state that this was not the case:
At the same time, giving the military district the status of an operational-strategic command does not mean that it will be made responsible for tasks currently carried out by other troops, military formations and organs of the Russian Federation.
Sergeyev’s stance on all this would have done little to convince many of the other power ministers that the MOD was not making a bid to exert greater control over their units. In September 1997, Sergeyev had published a major article setting out the course of reform for the Armed Forces over the next eight years. On the reform of the MD system, he stated that:
In 1997-1998, [it is proposed] to give military districts the status of operational-strategic commands [emphasis as in original – SJM] on the strategic directions, placing on them the function of operational leadership … of units, formations and sub-units of all the services of the Armed Forces and all other troops on questions of defence of the country.
An article published at the time of Concept being passed into law, examining a recent large-scale exercise held in the North Caucasus, revealed the confusion surrounding the whole question of who was in charge of what in relation to the security of the North Caucasus:
Even now it is not clear who has the main organising role for maintaining security and defence in the North Caucasus – the General Staff or the Main Staff of the MVD.
One commentator; however, did try to make sense of both the new Concept and its implications for the relationship between MoD and MVD units in any future conflict:
The leading role of each of the departments in resolving specific tasks has been defined. Thus, the Defence Ministry is responsible for the country’s defence on land and at sea … the Interior Ministry stops and neutralises internal armed conflicts … When tackling each of these problems all the power departments will be obliged to obey the one that bears responsibility for it. For example, if interventionists encroach upon Russian territory, all troops will be directed by the Defence Ministry; the Ministry of the Interior will assume command in the event of an armed revolt in a component part of the federation … the General Staff will co-ordinate operational-strategic planning.
Judging by the outline of the Concept contained in the above statement, the actions by Chechen forces and their allies in Dagestan in August 1999 could have been interpreted quite legitimately either as an armed intervention on Russian soil (MoD) or an armed revolt (MVD), thereby leading to a period of confusion and indecision as to who was in charge of what when the operation began. What appears to have happened was that, initially at least, Internal Troops Commander in Chief Ovchinnikov’s men were placed in charge of the operation to drive the militants out of Dagestan but, as the situation deteriorated and it became obvious that the MVD was out of its depth, the operation was re-defined and the MoD, in the form of the North Caucasus MD, was put in charge of the operation. Given the plethora of government commissions and special organs designed to tackle the security issues of the North Caucasus alone, the fact that there was organisational confusion during the counter-terrorist operation should not now be surprising. Whether in the immediate aftermath of the counter-terrorist operation , all those concerned were working according to the July 1998 Concept, or simply reacting to the developing situation, is difficult to say.

In re-defining the status of the MDs, both the country’s Minister of Defence and the Chief of the General Staff were of one mind that, if nothing else, the reform should mean that operational leadership of all the men in uniform be transferred, when the occasion so required, to the MD Commander. In short, the military were attempting to regain the upper hand over the Interior Ministry.

This would have been fuelled partly by the experience of Chechnya in 1994-1996, when units representing different power ministries rarely co-ordinated their activities effectively, but there would also have been an economic imperative (too many power structures chasing too little money to meet the security needs of the country and the military always seeming to lose out in the race). There was also the feeling that the Armed Forces had lost too much influence and power to the other ministries, especially the MVD. Of course, the argument at its surface level – the need to co-ordinate better the activities of all the relevant organs in order to ensure the country’s proper security – cannot be dismissed and was probably one of the main arguments deployed in order to convince Yel’tsin to sign the measure. Interestingly, in Kazantsev’s next major interview to Krasnaya Zvezda, he did not even mention the phrase, operational-strategic command . Had it already become a dead duck? Had the opposition of the other power ministries become so great that it had been allowed to slip quietly off the agenda or, much more speculatively, was it a casualty of the August 1998 crash? After all, given the fragile nature of the centre-periphery relationship throughout the latter half of 1998, any measures which looked to be granting more power, more control, especially over military affairs, to a regional leadership may have been viewed as a little too risky a course of action to pursue.

However, this interview did detail the training undertaken in the MD, as well as steps taken to hold more joint exercises with units of the other ministries. In general, the training carried out was intensive:
During this year, we carried out all planned command-staff exercises and sessions involving commands from platoon to large troop formation, during which were tested various elements in conducting military activity both in the plains and in mountain-forest terrain.
Kazantsev also pointed out that at the end of such training, tactical exercises were held, involving firing or rocket launches, designed to check the commander’s ability to command his subordinates. Asked specifically about the experience of the last Chechen War, Kazantsev replied that correctives had been introduced in the training schedule:
In practice training sessions of the troops, for example, the latter [are trained] to carry out a special control exercise from a tank whilst, at the same time, carrying out the tasks of a motor rifle section … Other new ideas have appeared. For example, one of these is the use of bilateral platoon and company tactical exercises. The experience of military operations in mountain-forest terrain showed that the main burden is on the shoulders of small combat groups, mostly motorised and reconnaissance platoons and companies. They are better suited for operating in the mountains and defending road blocks. That is why special attention is paid to this kind of training … For the first 9 months of this year, the district held more than 86% of fire practice sessions of the units and more fire practice sessions at platoon-level than for the whole of 1997.
Of course, Kazantsev could not but mention the complex at Dar’yal:
The Dar’yal training range is our main training centre, where the troops learn the techniques to fight in the mountains … special training courses are held here to teach the troops how to use their weapons and equipment in mountain-forest terrain … we continue to train units…to accompany military convoys on winding, mountain roads. The experience and methods learned at the test range and in practice are summed up and analysed at commander sessions, attended by officers from all levels, including senior personnel from the MD.
In terms of the broader theme of cooperation with the other power ministry units, Kazantsev noted that:
Today, the North Caucasus Military District in reality is the linking factor in the organisation of joint training of all the troops deployed in the region. We practise the conduct of joint command-staff exercises of the district’s troops with the control organs … of the other power ministries of the RF [Russian Federation] on the territory of the region. During the course of such exercises, we work out ways of stabilising the situation on the territory of the North Caucasus and localising armed conflicts.
He had no doubt that such joint exercises had demonstrated their success:
It was clearly shown [in a joint command staff exercise held in July 1998] that the fundamental basis of its success lay in the close cooperation of the control organs and units of all the power structures.
Despite these positive statements Kazantsev ended his interview on a somewhat pessimistic note, when he reminded his readership of the difficult conditions of the troops deployed to Dagestan, hence the recent decision by the Military Council of the MD to make sure that financing of the units there was given top priority.

Cooperation & Exercises: The Keys to Success?

The Inter-Action of the Power Ministries in the North Caucasus MD, 1996-1999
Our state is becoming more and more an object for all types of expansion. Foreign intelligence services, organised, including international, crime, separatist tendencies in the border zones have all significantly increased. In such a situation, to maintain national security exclusively by the Armed Forces, without minimising in any way their role and significance, is no longer possible. The best confirmation of this is the attempt to solve the Chechen crisis by force.

One of the most serious reasons for failures of the Federal Grouping in Chechnya is the lack of coordination of the actions of units from different departments. There has long been talk about the difficult relations between units of the Ministry of Defence and the MVD. Their history began back during the New Year’s assault on Groznyy in 1994, when columns of the two departments advancing along parallel streets did not have unified command or communications, and that is why their shells sometimes hit friendly troops.

Studying the experience of military activity in Chechnya [1994-1996], we have come to the conclusion that coordination of the military efforts of combined arms units and units of the Interior Ministry and Border Guards were the ‘Achilles heel’ of the actions of the Federal forces.

It was obvious that one of the main reasons for the poor performance of the Federal Grouping of Forces in Chechnya in 1994-1996 was the lack of cooperation (vzaimodeystviye can mean cooperation, coordination or interaction) between the power ministry units on the ground. Thus, cooperation became one of the leitmotifs in the subsequent analysis of the debacle.

In August and September 1996, articles appeared in the Russian military press calling for much greater coordination between the power ministries in maintaining Russia’s security, external and internal. Lieutenant-General G Radionov, then Chief of the MoD’s Main Educational Directorate, even called for the power structures to begin training their officer cadres together, thereby not only assisting the power ministries to find a common language, but also to save the state money, as resources could be pooled and unnecessary duplication of effort avoided. Similarly, a senior Border Guards officer argued for joint training for the MoD, the Border Guards and FAPSI.

On 21st March 1997, the following MoD press announcement appeared in Krasnaya Zvezda:
In accordance with the training plan for the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, during the period 24th-30th March this year, under the leadership of Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the First Deputy Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation, General of the Army Viktor Samsonov, will be held a planned command-staff exercise in the North Caucasus Military District. One of the main tasks of the exercise will be to work out problems in relation to the staff HQ and control organs [organy upravleniya] in charge of the troops.
A slightly fuller version of the announcement appeared a few days later, which mentioned that during the course of the command-staff exercise, questions concerning the cooperation of the NCMD’s troops with the territorially based units of the Interior Ministry and the staff HQs of Civil Defence and Emergency Situations in solving joint tasks will be worked on. It also provided some more detail on the aim of the exercise:
The aim of the exercise is to work out the tasks of mobilisational readiness and control of the troops under present conditions. This will include questions of cooperation between the control organs and the commands of the troops of the MoD, MVD, Border Guards, Military Railway Troops in the North Caucasus region … In essence, we are talking about checking…on the ways and possibilities of co-ordinating the training of the various power departments. In fact, the co-ordinating role of the General Staff is being worked on.
The exercise had been planned as far back as November 1996 and thus is the first command-staff exercise to be held in the North Caucasus MD after the war in Chechnya, and was planned not long after the Khasavyurt Agreement had been signed in August 1996. Needless to say, so soon after the end of the First Chechen War, the Chechens were far from happy that such an intensive and very public display of Russian military strength was taking place so close to the Chechen border and accused the Russians of launching a provocation in the region, as well as warning that such an exercise would only help to destabilise the situation in the area.

A TV report, broadcast by NTV on 28th March, confirmed the active involvement of the other ministries:
Many people are saying that the Redut-97 command and staff exercises in the North Caucasus Military District are the largest held in the last 10 years. Representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Federal Border Service and the other power-wielding departments are involved in carrying out the tasks set, as well as the staff of all the groups, formations and units which are stationed on the district’s territory.
In his initial public assessment of the exercise, Samsonov did confirm that the exercise was the main event of the year for the Russian Armed Forces, but did not say anything directly about the precise role of the other ministries involved. However, in a TV broadcast a week after the exercise had been completed, Samsonov stated that:
We always need to learn to work in close coordination with the other departments…we have been practising territorial defence actions here and these are closely connected with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Border Troops, as well as other forces.
The TV correspondent also noted that the General Staff brought in units from the MVD, Border Guards, and FAPSI, and a local MVD chief confirmed that a joint headquarters had also been established. This shows that at least on a practical level, the units were beginning to learn to work and train together. Given the paucity of information on this particular exercise, it is difficult to say much more about it, other than that it was the first in the NCMD to begin tackling the problems associated with the poor coordination of the activities of the power ministries in the earlier military campaign.

Kazantsev’s interview to Krasnaya Zvezda in September 1997, when he talked about inter-action with Interior Ministry Troops was interesting for a number of reasons, on top of those previously examined. In singling out the Interior Ministry Troops – the Army’s greatest rival for the little resources that were available to meet the country’s security needs – and their future co-ordinating role with the MoD, Kazantsev was making a number of points:

1. the very obvious one that as well-armed units in the MD, both sides would have to work and train together to avoid repeating past mistakes;
2. the Army was not sufficiently strong to secure Russia’s interests in the region alone and, finally,
3. the Army would now assume a greater internal role and, therefore, would have to seek greater coordination and cooperation with the MVD on a local level.

In early August 1997, Kvashnin – now officially confirmed as Chief of the General Staff – addressed a conference of Defence Ministry officials and urged the creation of a unified, territorially-based, control system for all defence and law-enforcement organs. Specifically:
The North Caucasus Military District must not comprise three Interior Troop districts or two border districts , arguing that each district should be run by a collective regional agency with the General Staff being given the status of a co-ordinating body.
In short, this was a preamble to the decision to elevate the MDs to operational-strategic commands. The statement by Kvashnin helps to reinforce the view that the military apparatus was getting ready to claw back some of its power and influence lost to the other power structures, under the guise of meeting Russia’s internal and external security threats, as well as economic pressure. Defence Minister Sergeyev’s remarks made at this time that the creation of the operational-strategic commands should allow the MDs to have operational leadership of the other power ministry units in the MD, at the appropriate time, was a clear sign that the military were intent on regaining lost influence.

The elevation of the MDs to their new status, towards the end of July 1998, was preceded by the appearance of an important and interesting article in Krasnaya Zvezda, written by Colonel-General L S Zolotov, then Commandant of the M V Frunze Military Academy, the Academy for training the Army’s senior officers. The article was simply entitled Coordination of the Power Structures and, ostensibly, was a review of a work to be published by the Academy, concerning the inter-action of the various power ministries, based on the experience of the First Chechen War. However, given the article’s appearance just before the adoption of the July 1998 Concept, the position of the author and the content of the work, it was more than simply a book review.

It began with the sentence, quoted at the beginning of this section, to the effect that coordination … of the Interior Ministry and Border Guards was the ‘Achilles heel’ in the activities of the Federal forces. Zolotov pointed out that the experience gained in WW2 had been lost and that troop commanders and staffs did not have the necessary theoretical concepts, or practical recommendations: how to co-ordinate, in such unusual conditions, a battle in a population centre, at night time, in the mountains, how to organise the defence of installations, anti-diversionary activities.

He admitted that the Academy was at fault in not preparing the necessary textbooks for the Armed Forces, or for any of the other power ministries for that matter, despite having a range of specialists on the staff, including men from the Interior Ministry and the Border Guards. However, the Academy’s attitude to such matters had changed and
the coordination of the combined arms troops, the border guards and Interior Troops commanders is now one of the priority areas in our work.

Experience has convinced us that co-ordinating the activities of troops from the various power ministries must be undertaken by the control organ [organ upravleniya] which, before the appearance of a conflict, has in its hands all the links for controlling their [the troops’] preparation, securing [their supplies]. In particular, this could be the administration of the military district.

In order to sweeten the pill for the other ministries, he then argued that the delegation of units to a combined group of troops could be for a defined period of time – either until the successful completion of the operation, or for the conduct of a special operation.

He was obviously trying to assuage any potential criticism that he was showing a bias towards recommending his own . He expanded further on this point. Whilst freely admitting that all the structures were already involved in the defence of the state, operating independently they were not equal to the task:
Let us take, for example, the Interior Ministry Troops. On them has been placed the main burden in the fight against illegal armed formations. But the units and sub-units of the Interior Ministry Troops are territorial units, their entire system of material, military-technical supply is based on local, stationary supply organs. They do not have heavy weapons. In conducting reconnaissance, radio-electronic warfare, defence, fire and engineering support, they are completely dependent on combined arms units.
Similarly, in relation to the Border Guards:
Their function is to secure the state border. But when there is a threat of large-scale military provocation on the border, the combined arms formations rush to their assistance. An example of this is Tajikistan. In conducting special operations against illegal armed formations, the border guards play an important role in the isolation of the conflict zone, preventing the movement of mercenaries, weapons, explosives, material resources, into the area. They play an active role in the fight against diversionary-reconnaissance groups and illegal armed formations.
However, Zolotov was also ready to admit that it was not all one-way traffic:
In their turn, motor rifle, airborne and tank troops need the assistance of Interior Ministry Troops in securing their rear, protecting it from diversionary and terrorist attacks, helping to disarm the militants. … But, in order to operate successfully together, shoulder to shoulder, you must know one another’s tactics and military capabilities.
Hence the Academy’s latest fundamental work, Coordination of Ground Forces, Interior Troop and Border Guard Units and Sub-Units in an Armed Conflict . It had already been sent to the printers and was due to see the light of day at the end of 1998. The book contained sections on the theoretical basis for the combat use of units and sub-units of Ground Forces, Interior Ministry Troops and Border Guards against illegal armed formations ; analysing the principles of coordination through the method of rendering mutual assistance to one another, rather than relying on a formal chain of command; methods of work of all the units involved in taking part in a special operation, using a hypothetical case study of an inner-state armed conflict, etc.

Zolotov concluded that:
Experience shows that to the interests of coordination must be subordinated the entire system of control of the operational group of forces created, as a rule, on the basis of the military district, within whose responsibility the conflict has arisen. To control the operational group of forces must be created: a single reconnaissance/intelligence centre; a group for general operational planning; an information group; an operational air force group; a centre for planning target destruction. In creating such a control organ, it is important to avoid the mistakes which occurred during the conduct of military operations in Chechnya, that improvised ‘groups’, ‘centres’, ‘administrative organs’ quickly appeared which, in their composition, included different departmental structures. Thus, it required a long time to arrive at carefully thought out joint decisions. As much as possible, it will be necessary to retain the system of administration which already exists in the military district, in the army.
Thus, in order to avoid one of the mistakes in the last military campaign in Chechnya, Zolotov argued for the creation of an operational group of forces, containing a number of departments, copying what was already there at MD level but making sure that the departments themselves did not sectionalise to represent their own narrow interests: if this was avoided, then time would be saved and lead to an overall increase in the success of joint missions and avoid instances of troops being killed in friendly fire. The basis for the creation of the (temporary) operational group of forces (OGV in Russian), would be the MD itself, with Interior Ministry Troops and Border Guards being allocated specific roles to perform in support of the overall military effort.

This was an important article, not only in its subject matter, but also in its timing, just weeks before the new Concept for the further reform of the Armed Forces was passed on 29th July 1998. The article stated that, having studied the experience of the war in Chechnya, one of the main problems was the inter-departmental rivalry which had led to uncoordinated attacks by the Federal forces and the unnecessary loss of life through soldiers and troops not knowing who was who. The experience of WW2, bought at a high price, had either been forgotten or simply ignored. If Russia was to stand successfully against the threat posed by illegal armed formations , then independently none of the power ministries was up to the job, but collectively they could. The collective knowledge of the staff of the Academy, no doubt many of whom had served in Afghanistan and Chechnya, and its hypothetical case study, as well as its choice of terminology, would appear to indicate that come 1999-2000, it played a role in ensuring that not all of the mistakes of 1994-1996 were repeated.

In some respects, especially in relation to the North Caucasus MD, the practical aspect of Zolotov’s work was already being put into effect, but then Kazantsev had his own experience of the First Chechen War to draw on. Thus, his troops were already cooperating with MVD units in the temporary operational grouping (MVD) which was maintaining the security of the administrative borders of Chechnya, North Osetia, Ingushetia and Dagestan. Asked specifically about coordination of activities of the ministries in the MD, he stated that:
It is not a secret that friction has arisen between the departments. But what particularly is odd about this, and this is strange, is that it is happening ‘from the top’. The lower you go, the more mutual understanding [you find] … We are ready to defend the southern borders of Russia and all the power ministries must tackle this main task together, by joint efforts.
In terms of how this could be achieved, Kazantsev pointed out that:
Part of Interior Troops, in principle, could take part in front operations, whilst other units could take part in territorial defence. This is [normally] one of our tasks during war time. In the case of the outbreak of a local conflict, we would jointly operate with the Ministry of Emergency Situations, MVD, properly worked out in joint command-staff exercises and training.
Indeed, practical coordination was examined in more detail during a very large exercise in the North Caucasus from 27th-31st July 1998. The exercise was unprecedented in the range of organs represented: as one newspaper commented at the time, in a word, anyone who wears epaulettes was involved, in all, some 15,000 troops. It was a real test for the Operational staff HQ of the MVD with responsibility for the North Caucasus, headed by Colonel-General L Shevtsov, which was nominally in command, and involved MVD Russia, North Caucasus MD, Federal Security Service, Ministry of Emergency Situations and Federal Border Guards. In the run up to the exercise, at one of the planning sessions, held in Stavropol’ on 3rd July, Interior Minister Stepashin noted that the developing situation in the North Caucasus urgently demands unified leadership of all the forces and means concerned with the maintenance of law and order and security in the region. Practically all conflicts here are inter-connected.

For his part, Shevtsov stated that one of the main aims of the exercise was to work out the necessary steps which may be employed to oppose the activities, on the scale of a sizeable conflict, which have already been unleashed by illegal armed formations of an extremist-separatist nature.

Several days before Chief of the General Staff Kvashnin arrived to take control of the military side of the exercise, a working group of senior officers from the General Staff’s Main Operations Directorate and the North Caucasus MD had been sent ahead of him. According to one well-known general attached to the exercise, the main aim is to work out the decision-making system in case of a real aggravation of the situation in the region and a break out of local bandit formations from Chechnya to neighbouring territory. Localise them and then liquidate them. Officially, the aims of the exercise ranged from maintaining law and order in the North Caucasus region to practising evacuating the population after a large-scale fire.

It was being run in parallel with a series of real planned military exercises involving troops, pilotless planes, helicopters and tanks. According to an official MOD press release:
The main aim of the exercise is to work out matters arising from the control of forces and means of the temporary operational grouping of the North Caucasus region [responsible] for maintaining law and order, public security, rendering aid to the local population, liquidating the consequences of large-scale fires, evacuating the population from sanitation-epidemic areas of the region, conducting quarantine measures, preventing looting, possible street disorders, terrorist acts, etc.
From the military’s point of view, its purpose was to work out the decision-making process in the event of a re-run of the First Chechen War, the role of the power ministries to localise the conflict and then eliminate the bandit formations. Certainly, the Chechen authorities were less than convinced about its peaceful nature: on 28th July, the Chechen Foreign Ministry issued a statement condemning the exercise, stating that it was an open demonstration of force which may destabilise the military and political situation in the entire Caucasus region. One other brief report confirmed that one of the exercises involving the power ministries was disarming a group of terrorists who had seized an administrative building , an exercise which was partly based on the events in Budennovsk in 1995 and in Makhachkala in June 1998.

Judging by reports of the exercise, the MoD, in cooperation with units of the other power ministries, conducted joint operations to free hostages, stop the activities of terrorists , people dealing with illicit goods, drug traffickers, etc. Thus apart from the more obvious military component, there were a number of areas where the main focus of attention was on anti-terrorist operations. This being the case, it was obvious that the input of the military would be important in evaluating future courses of action.

In a statement issued at the end of the exercise by ITAR-TASS, a preliminary assessment was positive:
At a meeting with journalists, he [Stepashin] noted the good cooperation between sub-units from different departments. He said the barrier created by poor liaison had been broken down for good … in Dagestan, for instance, the senior operational commander was the [local] Minister of Internal Affairs. This did not cause any jealousy amongst the military, the Minister said.

The commander of the North Caucasus Military District, Col-Gen V Kazantsev, considers this to be right, since internal affairs bear prime responsibility for public security. The army will always be ready to support them with the manpower and resources at its disposal.
Kazantsev later stated that:
We practise holding joint command-staff exercises of the troops of the district with the control organs and formations of the other power structures of the RF on the territory of the region. During the course of such measures, we work on the problems arising from stabilising the situation in the territory of the North Caucasus and localising armed conflicts. Conducting joint work has produced positive results. Confirmation of this was the joint command-staff exercise carried out in July of this year. It was clearly demonstrated that the base of success was the close coordination of the control organs and the units of all the power structures.
Given the size of the exercise, the equipment used, and the command and control arrangements – technically, the MVD was in overall charge, but with the presence of both the Chief of the General Staff and the MD Commander, as well as the prior involvement of senior officers from the General Staff, this was an exercise which was designed to test more than coordination. There was a bigger game being played here than simply working out how best to cope with a natural or man-made disaster. The involvement of the Chief of the General Staff was clear proof that despite Stepashin’s earlier comment that the Operational staff was in charge of leading the coordination of activities of power ministries, what was taking place was a quiet acknowledgement of the increasing internalisation of the role of the Army, at the expense of the MVD. Stepashin, as MVD Minister, was successful for a while in putting the MVD back into the centre of the security picture of the North Caucasus region, but it was not to be too long before the Armed Forces regained centre spot.

In strategic terms, the exercise had a larger purpose. It was designed to show all and sundry that:

1. Russia had not only learnt from its first debacle in Chechnya, but was putting those lessons into effect;
2. It would use all means at its disposal to maintain its presence in the region and, regardless of the terrorist attacks of the past, present or future, or the increasing lawlessness in the region, it would not be bullied or harassed out of it;
3. As reassurance to the Russian population of the region: Russia was still a military force to be reckoned with and would defend its position there with brute force, if necessary. It would not permit a Balkanisation of the region.

In connection with the presidential decree On organisational measures to maintain law and order and public security in the North Caucasus region issued at the end of May 1998, it had been decided to create as part of the MD’s structure the Joint Grouping of MoD Troops in the Republic of Dagestan, based in Kaspiysk. It too was heavily involved in coordinating its activities with the local units of the other ministries and the Grouping’s Commander, Lieutenant-General V Bulgakov, spoke about how the relevant units organised their co-ordinated activities:
We regularly hold joint exercises with units of the Interior Troops, organs of public security. And not only, by the way, on maps. Not to hide a sin, the reason for many of our previous mistakes has been inter-departmental disconnections. We did not have a unified ‘fighting team’ in Budennovsk, where the militants of Shamil Basayev were able to stroll along the streets without being punished, nor in Kizlyar, nor in Pervomayskoye, where the band of Salman Raduyev held hostages. And, on the whole, war in Chechnya showed the unpreparedness of joint activities of all the power structures, beginning at the tactical level. You see, there was strength here, but it worked in an uncoordinated fashion.
Asked what concrete steps he had taken to resolve this problem, Bulgakov stated that:
Twice a week, we hold joint field exercises: shooting and tactics … such exercises have a double benefit. On the one hand, the officers of the militia and the commanders of our units get to know one another, find a common language, and on the other hand – begin to more deeply understand those problems which can be solved jointly.
Moving on from the relationship with the local militia, Bulgakov also described the Grouping’s relationship with the MVD units based in Dagestan:
In relation to the units of the Interior Ministry Troops, they now have their own heavy calibre weapons and equipment. But they do not have trained specialists … from the newcomers we are helping them to train real specialists, both in terms of being able to drive the equipment properly and use its firepower. And the information which comes to us, as they say, from reliable sources, helps us to timeously prevent even the smallest provocative actions on the part of the militants.
An interesting relationship seemed to be at work in Dagestan, if somewhat unorthodox. On a practical level, it did seem to work, however: joint field training with the local militia units would help to hone their skills and improve combat effectiveness, whilst at the same time allow those involved a better chance of knowing one another and knowing the other’s problems and capabilities. Could this practical relationship between the security and law-enforcement organs in Dagestan have been one of the reasons for the distinct lack of success enjoyed by the Chechens and their allies in August 1999? Bulgakov, however, was under no illusion about the difficult position his men were in:
In comparison with the terrorists, the units of our grouping are in a less favourable position. We know that the extremists are near, constantly studying us, manoeuvring, choosing the moment to strike. We are static. That is why a whole complex of measures is needed, so that our officers are constantly alert, on exercise, on military training, teaching their men … how to survive the strike.
On 19th May 1999, a further decree was issued concerning the security situation in the North Caucasus. Entitled On additional measures to combat terrorism in the North Caucasus region of the RF , it was issued after a working meeting involving Yel’tsin and Putin, in his dual role as Secretary to the Security Council and Director General of the Federal Security Service. According to Putin, who was described as the initiator of the new decree, its essence was to improve the coordination of all the forces and means at the disposal of the federal authorities. Prior to the issue of the decree, the two men discussed three basic questions: FSB operations, Security Council operations and the political situation in the country against the background of the replacement of the government and elections in Karachayevo-Cherkessiya.

Leaving aside speculation concerning the alleged infighting between the MVD and the FSB on the carve-up of counter-intelligence work in the region, the decree outlined measures to increase the financial and technical-material aid to Interior Ministry Troops in the North Caucasus. Putin described the situation in the North Caucasus as bad and, in examining the wider ramifications of the instability in the region stated that certain forces for instability outside Russia are trying to solve their geostrategic problems through the North Caucasus region. In response, one Russian commentator remarked: In other words, the FSB is returning to one of its long-term favourite themes: someone is stirring up the peoples of the Caucasus.

Whilst there can be little denying the fact that the situation in the North Caucasus – despite all the measures being adopted nationally and locally – was continuing to deteriorate, little was to be gained by looking at outside forces as being the main instigator of Russia’s problems in the North Caucasus. Whilst it is outside the remit of this paper, Russia does not have far to look when apportioning blame for the present situation in the region – whilst it would be wrong to solely blame Russia for the mess in the Caucasus, it has to accept a fair share of the blame for what has happened and is happening there. Testament to its failure to adequately comprehend the problems of the region is its necessity of having to intervene militarily twice since 1994: will there be a third time?

A number of exercises were still to take place in the North Caucasus MD in the run up to the events of August 1999. One of the most interesting took place at the beginning of June 1999 and involved militia units, MVD and MoD troops operating in the Kursk region of Stavropol’, not far from the border with Chechnya. A combination of militia, what was described as personnel from a special mechanised regiment and OMON (special purpose militia) units practised defending a control point. In the description of the exercise, mention was also made of the use of a 30-minute rapid reaction unit, as well as the use of artillery and tanks in order to repulse an attacking band. In his evaluation of the role of the MoD units, First Deputy Commander Internal Troops, North Caucasus Interior Troops District, Lieutenant-General Ye Abrashin stated that: Without the units of the MoD, we would not have been able to carry out the tasks placed before us.

The report also mentioned joint patrols involving militia and airborne troops operating in the region of Terekli-Mektel in Dagestan. Again, a number of units took part in a variety of exercises including freeing hostages, repulsing an attack on a motor brigade’s headquarters; and disarming bandits aboard a bus. In his estimation of the year’s exercises to date, the Deputy C-in-C of Internal Troops for Emergency Situations, Major-General V Dadonov, concluded that: All the power ministries are now dedicated to one single aim: to maintain stability in the North Caucasus. For his part Kazantsev, summarising the latest round of exercises and evaluating the work of all the exercises in the past year stated: In comparison with such command-staff exercises of a year ago, the level of coordination between the staffs of all the power ministries has increased by a whole magnitude.

Thus, on the eve of a new military campaign opening up in the North Caucasus, the level of coordination of the military activities of the power ministries had increased significantly. Having realised that one of the major reasons for the debacle in 1994-1996 was the lack of coordination between the different power ministry units operating in Chechnya, the senior military leadership, especially in the North Caucasus MD, set about trying to rectify the problem through a renewed emphasis on combat training, joint command staff exercises and greater inter-action between MoD, MVD, MChS, FSB, etc, culminating in the large-scale exercise held in July 1999. Men from different units with different responsibilities trained together and became much more aware of one another’s capabilities and weaknesses. This author is aware of 15 major command-staff exercises between March 1997-July 1999; see Appendix 1. The admission that no one power ministry, including the MoD, could maintain Russia’s security solely by its own efforts meant that all the power ministry units had to operate together in the face of the growing internal threat to the stability of the Russian Federation.

However, despite this very real need, the issue of operational command and control of joint forces was to be a problem, as evidenced by the initial conduct of the counter-terrorist operation in August 1999. On 17th August, operational command of the Federal Groupings of Forces was transferred from the MVD to the MoD, the former simply not being able to retaliate with sufficient venom to the cross border incursion. However, 10 days later, operational command was transferred back to the MVD, for operations against the rebels in Karamakhi, Chabanmakhi and Kadar. Again, though, this was deemed a failure and, finally, operational commander was restored to the MoD on 4th September.

The Immediate Lessons of Coordination in the Counter-Terrorist Operation (1999-2000)

A number of senior Russian military figures have already publicly aired their views on the experience of the coordination of activities in the counter-terrorist operation in Chechnya and, to date, the reaction has been far from wild praise for what has been achieved. Indeed, according to the Commandant of the Combined Forces Academy, Colonel-General L S Zolotov,
In the organisation of coordination of combined arms units with the armed formations of other troops, as in the first Chechen campaign, there were many defects.
Thus despite all the training and exercises and positive assessment of the level of coordination between the power ministry units in the North Caucasus MD, the operation would appear to have revealed that there is still much room for improvement. It will be interesting to see what further steps are taken by Russia’s military and political leadership.

Major-General (Retired) I N Vorob’yev, opened his generic analysis by stating that:
Among the problems which arose during the course of armed conflicts on the territory of Russia recently, one of the biggest has been the organisation of coordination between troops from the various power structures in the conduct of special operations against illegal armed formations. There are many objective and subjective reasons for this but, arguably, the most important has been that, since the collapse of the USSR, the unified military organisation of the state, which went through the testing time of the Great Patriotic War, was divided into separate parts; its own Armed forces separate from the military formations of the other ministries and departments (MVD, FPS, ZhDV, FSB MChS, FAPSI and others).
The first step, in his opinion, is to restore the principle of centralised leadership of the organisation of the state’s military mechanism. Russia’s new Military Doctrine (April 2000) made a number of references to the centralisation of leadership as being a basic principle of the development of the state’s military organisation. It also refers to improving strategic planning on the principle of unity of the use of the Russian Federation armed forces and other troops .

Vorob’yev lists a more specific series of problems which manifested themselves during the current military campaign in the North Caucasus:
Events in Chechnya and Dagestan show that the basic reasons which made the co-ordinated activities of the various departmental force structures taking part in the armed conflict difficult were: the incompatibility of the legal base to the aims and principles of their joint use; the lack of a unified control system, [the lack of a] comprehensive supply system as well as forecasting and observing the military-political, strategic and operational situation in potentially explosive regions; uncoordinated departmental programme-regulation documents for the training of troops (forces) and organs for joint activities in the event of a crisis situation developing; the disunity in the infrastructure of the state’s military organisation.
Vorob’yev examined the wider dimension behind solving an internal armed conflict, including the humanitarian and political factors involved, as well as who should be the prime mover in co-ordinating the roles of the force structures. In what he terms special operations which seem to cover Russia’s present counter-terrorist operation , Vorob’yev stated that:
The main aim of special operations is not to allow the destabilisation of the situation in the country, the violation of the constitutional order, but to create the necessary conditions for the elimination of the contradictions by political means.

In resolving an internal armed conflict, such an operation will be carried out on the territory of one’s state and this fact will reflect on its content. The force structures will operate in a way to avoid losses amongst the civilian population and amongst the soldiers.

Vorob’yev also attached the primary role to working out the aims and tasks of the special operation to the political factor, which will be decisive in choosing the means, forms, scale and length of military operations. This was an interesting point to make and one worth emphasising. One of the fundamental differences between the two military campaigns in Chechnya in the 1990s has been, for want of a better phrase, the political will. This was different in 1999 in many ways from the previous war of 1994-1996 not least because this time round Russia had a leader (Putin) who, rightly or wrongly, wanted to prosecute this war with the utmost vigour. The political leadership in the Kremlin did not interfere in the plans of the military, nor in matters relating to how best to organise the conduct of operations. In short, the military, both at the centre and in Chechnya, were never in any doubt what the Kremlin thought about this war and set about their task accordingly.
Then the question arises: who in the final analysis is the organiser of coordination? It is difficult to give a categorical answer. If one speaks from the principle side of things, then one has to rely on the fundamental documents of the state. In the National Security Concept of the RF, the priority in solving problems in repulsing…internal threats to national security belongs to the Ministry of the Interior … the representative of Internal Troops MVD and it must organise coordination. However, if an internal armed conflict becomes large-scale and to solve it requires a large mass of troops, then the main co-ordinator of the combat effort of the unified operational grouping of different forces is the combined arms commander, as was the case in repulsing the invasions by the bandit formations in Dagestan, when the leadership of operations was placed on the Commander of the North Caucasus MD. In other circumstances, the head of the operational grouping of forces could be the Commander of Interior Troops MVD district.
In short, in deciding who has primacy in running an operation, someone has to decide carefully what criteria to adopt, in order to evaluate when and under what circumstances an internal threat to the country can be properly handled by the MVD, with back-up when necessary being provided by the other power ministry units, or when the MoD should be the lead player. Given the growing internalisation of the role of the Armed Forces, this remains a very difficult problem for the country’s senior political, legal and military figures. Definition of the terms used to describe the operation will have important consequences for the command structure and level of force applied.

The General Staff’s main theoretical journal, Voyennaya Mysl’, continues to publish articles analysing the experience of the counter-terrorist operation in the North Caucasus. It printed a number of reports from a round table discussion involving senior military officers, giving a preliminary evaluation of the pluses and minuses of the operation so far. In examining coordination, the two main contributions were made by Colonel-General Yu D Bukreyev, Head of the Main Directorate, Ground Forces, and Colonel-General L S Zolotov, Commandant of the Combined Forces Academy.

In his contribution, Bukreyev noted that questions concerning the organisation of coordination of various power structures deserved particular attention. He noted that what now had to occur was a detailed analysis of a range of issues associated with coordination: the ways [of reaching] joint decisions; the composition of the troops taking part in combat actions; the time and sequence of carrying out planned tasks; [detailed working out and agreement on] regions, borders, installations for action; conditions, means and time in the joint use of means of attack, as well as limitations on their use in population centres; questions concerning the organisation of control and communications, all-round supplies, notification and identification, etc. It was also important, in his opinion, to ensure that in organising cooperation in the counter-terrorist operation , the local organs were involved, especially in exchanging information on activities of the illegal armed formations ; maintaining communication facilities; guarding important facilities for civilian population, etc. Bukreyev listed the following main conclusions:
One. Units and sub-units of Ground and Airborne Troops played a decisive role in fulfilling the tasks of counter-terrorist operation…

Two. The experience of the combat use of units and sub-units of Internal Troops MVD RF showed that in the specifics of fulfilling their service-combat missions, they were inadequately effective during the conduct of the first stage of the counter-terrorist operations (the elimination of illegal armed formations)…

Three. Military-capable, well-coordinated units and sub-units with their own supply organs and the corresponding necessary material-technical reserves must be the basis of the created group of forces for activities in the zone of armed conflict…

Four. In the Ground Forces, it is necessary to have in constant readiness a packet of combat, special, rear and technical supply units.

Five. The control system, created in peace time, should adequately ensure the solution of issues of control during an armed conflict without changing it. The leadership of the Unified Grouping of Troops (Forces) must be carried out by the Commander whose troops, at that stage of the conflict, are carrying out the main task.

Six. Of great significance in armed conflicts are problems involving the inter-action of command personnel and troops with the local population. Knowledge and respect for national customs and values, close contact with representatives of local organs of self-administration, will help the soldiers successfully carry out their tasks, will cut down on the losses amongst soldiers and peaceful citizens.

For his part, Zolotov also pointed out that the issue of coordination between the power ministries was still a big problem which, in his opinion, would only be resolved when everyone was taught literally in the same classroom:
As in the first Chechen campaign, there were many inadequacies in the organisation of coordination of combined arms units with armed formations of other troops. The main reason…for this is that we still have not overcome the ministerial disunity in the training of our command cadres. You see only with joint teaching in military higher educational establishments of officers of Ground Forces, Internal Troops MVD, Border Guard troops FPS, will we then have the possibility of unifying views on the basics of the military art, studying the organisation of interaction. Then it will be easier for them to find a common language in a combat situation and jointly decide on combat tasks.
Zolotov pointed out that there was poor coordination between units of Army Aviation, combined arms units and MVD Troops during the counter-terrorist operation , as well as, again, poor coordination between artillery of combined arms units and their opposite numbers in the MVD. In conclusion, he reminded readers that his Academy was preparing to publish a solid work, examining in great detail all the issues raised.

There are clearly still a significant number of problems in the area of coordinating combat activities, both at the theoretical and, more importantly, at the practical level. On a theoretical level, there is still not a strong legal foundation, detailing which ministry does what and under what circumstances (when is it appropriate for the MoD to get involved in such operations and at what level? Once involved, what should then be the respective roles of the MVD, the Border Guards, FSB, etc?) Turf wars were a problem in the First Chechen War and would appear to have still been an issue in the second. There is a real possibility that unless adequate steps are taken, friction could easily break out between the Russian Army and MVD Interior Troops in the future in the event of such operations having to be conducted again. Although mistakes on a practical level were not fully ironed out, it would appear that fewer mistakes were made, and of a different type, hence the greater success enjoyed the second time round (although as evidenced by Appendix 2 the power of superior numbers of men and firepower must have played its part). The experience of the current operation, no doubt, will be examined and analysed and more changes introduced, both in terms of defining the legal obligations of each of the power ministries in resolving such conflicts, as well as on a practical level. These will probably include further emphasis on training more men from all units to be able to fight in the mountains and forests of the Caucasus; beginning a proper programme for training cadres for all the main power ministries together in the same establishments; putting into practical effect the elevated status of the MDs to operational-strategic commands, by re-defining the role of the local MD Commander as the man in operational charge of all men in uniform in his district, when appropriate circumstances arise. These are just a few of the issues which the government under Putin will have to resolve quickly. How it does so will have a significant impact on how successfully it wages the next counter-terrorist operation and, have no doubt about it, there will be another one.

An interesting development which has taken place recently has been the re-organisation of Russia into seven federal districts and the appointment of presidential plenipotentiaries to head them. This has generally been seen as an early attempt by the new Russian president to re-establish the vertical levers of power, thereby ensuring greater Kremlin control of what is actually going on in the regions. Given the fact that the new federal district boundaries are almost coterminous with the MDs and that the overwhelming majority of the new federal plenipotentiaries have been senior members of the power ministries, there has been speculation that it will not be long before further organisational change at this level takes place, thereby leading to a further concentration of both military and civilian powers in the hands of these newly created presidential plenipotentiaries. Given the earlier decision, taken in July 1998, to elevate the MDs to operational-strategic commands , there are grounds for speculation that in the medium-to-long-term this may happen. In effect, in attempting to further enhance the leadership of the president in the regions, Putin may re-create the old system of governor-generals, introduced in Russia in the mid-19th century when Russia was initially divided into a series of MDs, whose commanders had authority over civilian as well as military affairs in the district.

The North Caucasus Federal District has the same boundaries as the North Caucasus MD and, not too surprisingly given recent events, the presidential plenipotentiary to the Federal District is none other than General V G Kazantsev. In his first major interview since being appointed, Kazantsev stated that his main task was to ensure that that there is no serious work for the military to do in the south of the country by tackling the three evils of banditry, terrorism and corruption. At the end of the interview, Kazantsev referred to an idea which, in a slightly different format, he had expressed on a number of occasions in the past:
I do indeed believe that the rebirth of the army will begin with the North Caucasus Military District and that the revival of the country will begin with the south. All the prerequisites for this exist in our highly abundant, highly fertile region. The south is Russia’s ‘solar plexus’. If we organise normal life [there], we will flourish.
Only time will tell how successful both this attempt at re-creating the vertical structure of power in general, and Kazantsev’s efforts as Putin’s personal representative to the North Caucasus Federal District in particular, will be in solving the nation’s myriad of problems.

CODA

The need for Russia to intervene militarily a second time in Chechnya in such a comparatively short space of time has to be viewed as a comprehensive failure of Russian policy in the North Caucasus region as a whole. The use of military forces – however well or badly they performed – has to be viewed as stark testament to the fact that, first and foremost, the political process in the region had failed. August 1999, however, had much less to do with revenge politics, for want of a better phrase, than most commentators in the West give credit for. After all, it is quietly forgotten now but the Chechen militants and their allies did launch an armed incursion into Dagestan and Russia saw this as a direct challenge to its authority in the region, an authority which had been severely dented, not just by the First Chechen War, but also by the terrorist outrages in the south of Russia since 1995; the challenge to federal rule posed by the presidential elections in Karachayevo-Cherkessiya; the growing levels of lawlessness in the region – personified by, but not solely restricted to Chechnya; and the growth of religious extremism in the region. As far as Moscow was concerned, something had to be done and done quickly.

And yet, for a time, the relationship between the command of the North Caucasus MD and Groznyy, publicly at least, looked like it could have followed a different path from the one which led to eventual military confrontation in August 1999. This should not be taken to mean that the Russian military command, at the local level, was not preparing for combat action in the area, but had the attitude of the senior political leadership in the Kremlin of Chechnya been different, the MD’s military command could have reacted accordingly.

In May 1998, the MD’s Commander – Kazantsev – and First Deputy Commander – Troshev – made a number of public announcements which hint at the possibility that relations could have improved, had events not taken the turn they did, or Moscow had shown a more positive attitude. During that month, Kazantsev formally invited a number of regional political leaders – including A Maskhadov – to attend the 80th anniversary celebrations of the creation of the North Caucasus MD. Troshev confirmed that the MD command did receive a positive response from the Chechen authorities. Unfortunately, due to the recent kidnapping of Yel’tsin’s most senior political representative to the region, V Vlasov, the invitation was not followed up.

Troshev also made the point that the Chechen leadership itself needed stability in the region:
Maskhadov is anxious that everything in the republic should be stable. It is important even for their own purposes. Even in order to secede, they want peace…they want to put an end to disorder, to get rid of weapons, to create a situation where only those who are authorised…can carry guns.
In response to a question concerning the desire of the military to aggravate the situation in the region:
There are roadblocks all along the Russian-Chechen border. The police, the Interior Troops, as well as our troops … are on duty around the clock and today we are pressing for the withdrawal of all these troops. Why? To begin with, these roadblocks separate Chechnya from us, we alienate Chechnya from us, which is not right.
In the same TV broadcast, Kazantsev mentioned that a request had been sent by Maskhadov during our last meeting to the MD’s command for assistance in clearing mines . This raises a number of interesting points: how many meetings did they have? What was discussed at these meetings? How often did they take place? In a newspaper interview, Kazantsev elaborated on this further, as well as the nature of the relationship both between Rostov and Groznyy and Moscow and Groznyy:
Let’s take Chechnya, which is in the territory of the district. Recently, there have been positive moments in the dialogue between Moscow and Groznyy. The Minister of the Interior, A Stepashin, has held talks on joint activities of the law-enforcement organs on the administrative border with Chechnya. The president of Chechnya recently approached us with a request to help clear mines. People have to work, feed their children, but not to fight. Not that long ago, we sent humanitarian assistance to Chechnya … we cannot always be in permanent confrontation with Chechnya. We must find variants for normalisation, although the solution to these matters is, of course, in the province of the politicians, not the military [emphasis mine – SJM].
But by the end of July 1998, Russia held its massive command-staff exercise in the North Caucasus MD and everything was thrown backwards, not forwards. Mutual hostility and suspicion rose to the surface and no new positive moments were to be heard publicly in the subsequent dialogue between Moscow, Rostov and Groznyy. The chance for a more peaceful development in the relationship between Russia and Chechnya was lost and the stage set for August 1999.

Endnotes

APPENDIX ONE

Exercises known to have taken place in the North Caucasus Military District, (March 1997-July 1999)

After the disintegration of the USSR, Ukraine found itself in possession of the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal. There were 176 launchers of intercontinental ballistic missiles with some 1,240 warheads on Ukrainian territory. This force consisted of 130 SS-19s, each capable of delivering six nuclear weapons, and 46 SS-24s, each armed with ten nuclear weapons. An additional 14 SS-24 missiles were present in Ukraine, but not operationally deployed with warheads. Several dozen bombers with strategic nuclear capabilities were armed with some 600 air-launched missiles, along with gravity bombs. In addition, as many as 3,000 tactical nuclear weapons rounded out an arsenal totalling approximately 5,000 strategic and tactical weapons.

From the first days of its independent development, Ukraine affirmed three basic principles — not to accept, manufacture or acquire nuclear weapons. The West remained concerned with the nuclear aspects of Ukraine’s problems with weapons proliferation. Western sensitivity over nuclear issues convinced Ukraine’s leaders that they could influence the West by using the nuclear lever.

The Declaration on State Sovereignty adopted by the Parliament of the Ukrainian SSR on 16 July 1990 defined the building of the army as a major task and a natural right of the future Ukrainian independent state. By announcing the right to maintain its own army, Ukraine took a significant step toward independence from the USSR. The military coup in Moscow in August 1991 and fears that Soviet troops on Ukraine’s territory would act aggressively against the Ukrainian state led the official leadership in Kiev to subordinate these troops to the control of Ukrainian authorities. Ukraine also announced as its own the Soviet military property on the soil of the newly independent state.

Ukraine inherited about 30 percent of the Soviet military industry, which included between 50 and 60 percent of all Ukrainian enterprises, employing 40 percent of its working population. Ukraine was, and remains, the leader in missile-related technology, especially guidance systems, navigation electronics for combat vessels and submarines, and radar for military jets. Strong competition in the world’s weapons market forced Ukraine to look into exporting arms to politically unstable or even aggressive regimes. Ukraine established its own network for arms export and, in so doing, did not fully recognize international rules and bans. The Ukrainian military traded conventional arms on the black market and signed contracts with commercial firms. The first contracts on weapons deliveries to Iran, signed in the middle of 1992, and caused negative reaction in the West (particularly in the US).

On 13 May 1994, the United States and Ukraine signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the Transfer of Missile Equipment and Technology. This agreement committed Ukraine to adhere to the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) by controlling exports of missile-related equipment and technology according to the MTCR Guidelines.

Ukraine has a sufficient amount of highly enriched uranium, which the United States wanted to buy from the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology. Ukraine also has two uranium mining and processing factories, a heavy water plant, a technology for making electronic to determine the isotopic composition of fissionable materials. Ukraine has deposits of uranium that are among the world’s richest.

Ukraine initially announced its intention to obtain operational control over the strategic nuclear weapons deployed in its territory. Responding to these intentions, Russian military officials responded that attempts to interfere with, or to damage the command and control systems of, Russian strategic troops located abroad would constitute a direct military threat to Russian Federation.

Originally Ukrainian leader Leonid Kravchuk was not worried if nuclear weapons went to Russia for decommissioning. Gradually, however, his worries developed sufficiently to lead to him to reverse his position and on 12 March 1992 to suspend temporarily the transfer of tactical nuclear weapons to Russia. However, in conformity with the 16 July 1990 Declaration of State Sovereignty and other agreements signed at the creation of the CIS, by May 1992 Ukraine voluntarily removed all tactical nuclear weapons [approximately 3000] inherited from the former Soviet Union.

The trilateral agreement signed in Moscow on 14 January 1994 by the United States, Russia, and Ukraine was seen as a significant Western success in disarming Ukraine of nuclear weapons. Under the agreement, the Russian Federation undertook to send 100 tons of fuel to Ukraine for its nuclear-power plants. The United States agreed to pay $60 million to the Russian Federation in support of that process. For its part, Ukraine agreed to transfer 200 nuclear warheads over a 10-month period.

As of May 1994, 120 SS-19 Stiletto and 60 SS-24 Scalpel intercontinental ballistic missiles had been shipped out of Ukraine for reprocessing in Russia.

Ukraine announced in June 1996 that all warheads bad been removed from the country. A problem arose in the removal of SS-19s, which use large amounts of a toxic substance known as heptyl. The United States sent storage tanks to hold 2,200 metric tons of the substance. After the SS-19 missiles were removed from combat duty, 19 were re-used in Russia.

The Strategic Nuclear Arms Elimination in Ukraine – SNAE (U) program in Ukraine was structured to support Ukrainian participation in START I Treaty implementation and facilitate the destruction of WMD delivery systems.

In 2002, a Ukrainian proposal was submitted to split Executive Agency between the MOD and the National Space Agency of Ukraine (NSAU), with the MOD handling military issues and NSAU handling ICBM and associated fuel elimination and part storage.

At completion of the SS-24 Weapons System Elimination and Bomber & ASM Elimination programs, all strategic nuclear arms of Ukraine will have been eliminated and the overall objectives of the SNAE (U) program will have been met.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s International Nuclear Export Control Program [INECP] provides support to the State Department’s Export Control and Border Security Program’s (EXBS) nonproliferation goals by focusing resources on cooperative projects in the three themes that guide its domestic program: licensing, industry outreach, and enforcement.

In Ukraine, INECP provided support to licensing activities for both of the country’s premier nuclear institutes—the Institute for Nuclear Research (INR) and the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology (KIPT). Support for the Nuclear Export License Review System (NELRS), a computer-based system designed to facilitate the technical review of license applications, is ongoing. A second automated system, the SSECU departmental database, was also developed with INECP support. This database is used by the Nuclear Item Review Department of SSECU to review past licenses and access reference materials.

In Industry Outreach, American experts joined with representatives of INR and KIPT, as well as Ukraine’s State Service for Export Control and the Science and Technology Center (STC) in providing presentations on technology transfers and technology security, commodity classification, and internal compliance for the nuclear industry in Ukraine . In the area of enforcement, the George Kuzmycz Training Center completed the first step of developing a training course for the State Customs Service of Ukraine (SCSU) by completing a curriculum deliverable accepted by SCSU. The Kuzmycz Center, it was agreed, will develop the training courses and begin training SCSU in FY 2003.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is the federal agency responsible for protecting public health and safety with regard to the use of nuclear materials in commercial nuclear power plants that generate electricity. Its regulations are based on sound science to make determinations that adequate protection of the public and the environment is maintained. As part of its responsibility, NRC requires plant operators to have effluent and environmental monitoring programs to ensure that the impacts from nuclear plant operations are minimized. The results of this monitoring have shown the presence of natural and weapons fallout radiation and in a few instances, very low levels of radioactive material of nuclear plant origin.

A number of studies by the Radiation Public Health Project1 assert that levels of radioactive strontium-90 (Sr-90) are rising in the environment and that these increased levels are responsible for increases in cancers, particularly cancers in children, and infant mortality. The group claims that radioactive effluents from nuclear power plants are directly responsible for the increases in Sr-90. In one study, researchers reported that Sr-90 concentrations in baby teeth are higher in areas around nuclear power plants than in other areas. This has sometimes been referred to as “The Tooth Fairy Project.” However, numerous peer-reviewed, scientific studies do not substantiate such claims.
Strontium-90 Sources

Strontium is a silvery-white alkaline earth metal that exists in several stable and unstable or radioactive isotopes (Sr-89 and Sr-90). Strontium-90 is a radioactive isotope that is produced in nuclear fission–splitting of an atom’s center that releases energy– and has a half-life (decay of half its radioactivity) of about 28 years. In the United States, the primary pathway for Sr-90 to enter the body is through ingestion of contaminated foods and cow’s milk.

Strontium-90 does not occur naturally. It comes from three sources:

1) fallout from above-ground explosions of nuclear weapons testing worldwide from 1963 to 1980;
2) radioactive releases from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident in the Ukraine; and
3) radioactive releases from nuclear power plants into the environment.

By far, the largest source of Sr-90 in the environment (~99%) is from weapons testing fallout. Approximately 16.8 million curies of strontium-90 were produced and globally dispersed in atmospheric nuclear weapons testing until 1980 (UNSCEAR 2001)2. With a 28 year half-life, Sr-90 still remains in the environment at nominal levels. Numerous measurements were made during weapons testing which found that the worldwide average radiation dose from ingesting Sr-90 (1945 to present) is 9.7 millirem (about equal to radiation doses from a transpolar flight), and the dose from inhaling strontium-90 (1945 to 1985) is 0.92 millirem (about equal to the dose from an arm or leg x-ray). These doses are well below those doses known to cause any effects on health (NCRP 1991)3. The doses from Sr-90 in the environment are about 0.3% of the average annual dose a person in the United States receives from natural background radiation (~300 millirem).

As a result of the Chernobyl accident, approximately 216,000 curies of Sr-90 were released into the atmosphere. An increase in the incidence of childhood thyroid cancer in the area directly affected by the accident has been attributable to radioiodine ingestion. No other increase in overall cancer incidence or mortality has been observed that can be attributed to radiation from the accident (UNSCEAR 2000)4.

The total annual release of strontium-90 into the atmosphere from all 103 commercial nuclear power plants operating in the United States is typically 1/1000th of a curie. (NUREG/CR-2907, Vol. 12)5. At an individual nuclear power plant, the amount of Sr-90 is so low that it is usually at or below the minimum detectable activity of sensitive detection equipment. Radiation doses from Sr-90 to individuals living within 30 miles of a nuclear power plant would be a tiny fraction of less than one millirem. As indicated above, nuclear power plant emissions of Sr-90 are inconsequential compared with other man-made sources and, thus, it is reasonable to conclude that the vast majority of Sr-90 that can be detected in, for example, baby teeth would be attributable to fallout from nuclear weapons testing or, possibly, the Chernobyl accident.
Ability for Strontium-90 to Cause Cancer

Sr-90, if ingested, tends to mimic calcium when it is in the body and therefore becomes concentrated in calcified tissues such as bones and teeth. If ingested in quantities that produce very large radiological dose rates (about a thousand times higher than doses we all receive from natural radiation), Sr-90 is known to increase the risk of bone cancer and leukemia in animals, and is presumed to do so in people. Below these doses, there is no evidence of excess cancer [Raabe 1994]6.
Radiation Monitoring at Nuclear Power Plants

Limits on Plant Discharges (Effluents)

The NRC has established strict limits on the amount of radioactive emissions allowed to be released from nuclear plants to the environment and the resulting exposure for members of the public and the plant workers. (NRC requirements are in Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 20, Appendix B, http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr/part020/part020-appb.html). The concentration of radionuclides that may be released is limited to levels which, if inhaled or ingested continuously over the course of a year, would produce a dose of no more than 100 millirem. These limits are based on radiation protection recommendations of both the National Council on Radiation Protection Measurements and the International Commission on Radiological Protection organizations resulting from ongoing research. Nuclear power plants are further limited by their license conditions to keep radioactive material in effluents “as low as reasonably achievable” so that dose criteria for releases to unrestricted areas are five millirem for releases into the air and three millirem for liquid releases.

All power plant operators are required to monitor radioactive airborne and liquid discharges from the plant and to file a report of these discharges annually with the NRC. These reports, which are publicly available, list the radioactive isotopes released, the quantity released and the radiation dose to the public. The concentrations of radionuclides released into the environment from a nuclear facility are generally too low to be measurable outside the plant’s boundary. For this reason, any Sr-90 detected in areas near a nuclear power plant would not likely have come from the plant, but would be attributed to fallout from nuclear weapons testing or from the Chernobyl accident.

Plant Environmental Monitoring

In addition to limits on effluent releases, plant operators maintain an environmental monitoring program that is reviewed and inspected regularly by NRC to ensure compliance with its requirements. To demonstrate that the plant is within the regulatory limits, operators regularly sample and analyze the surrounding soil, vegetation, cow’s milk, and water. In a given year, a plant operator samples and analyzes hundreds of environmental samples. The results of environmental monitoring and assessment efforts are provided to the NRC in an annual report, which is available to the public.

It is reasonable to conclude that Sr-90 would be seen in the environment well before it is seen in baby teeth. In order for it to be in the environment from nuclear power plants, it would have to be seen in significant quantities in the effluent stream from these facilities. However, Sr-90 is not present in the effluents at such levels.
Studies Examining Health Effects Around Nuclear Power Plants

In 1990, at the request of Congress, the National Cancer Institute7 conducted a study of cancer mortality rates around 52 nuclear power plants and 10 other nuclear facilities. The study covered the period from 1950 to 1984, and evaluated the change in mortality rates before and during facility operations. The study concluded there was no evidence that nuclear facilities may be linked causally with excess deaths from leukemia or from other cancers in populations living nearby.

In June 2000, investigators from the University of Pittsburgh8 found no link between radiation released during the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island power plant and cancer deaths among nearby residents. Their study followed 32,000 people who lived within five miles of the plant at the time of the accident.

The Connecticut Academy of Sciences and Engineering9, in January 2001, issued a report on a study around the Haddam Neck nuclear power plant in Connecticut and concluded radiation emissions were so low as to be negligible.

The American Cancer Society10 in 2001 concluded that although reports about cancer clusters in some communities have raised public concern, studies show that clusters do not occur more often near nuclear plants than they do by chance elsewhere in the population. Likewise, there is no evidence that links Sr-90 with increases in breast cancer, prostate cancer, or childhood cancer rates. Radiation emissions from nuclear power plants are closely controlled and involve negligible levels of exposure for nearby communities.

Also in 2001, the Florida Bureau of Environmental Epidemiology11 reviewed claims that there are striking increases in cancer rates in southeastern Florida counties caused by increased radiation exposures from nuclear power plants. However, using the same data to reconstruct the calculations on which the claims were based, Florida officials were not able to identify unusually high rates of cancers in these counties compared with the rest of the state of Florida and the nation.

In 2000, the Illinois Public Health Department12 compared childhood cancer statistics for counties with nuclear power plants to similar counties without nuclear plants and found no statistically significant difference.
Measuring Radioactive Substances in People

Interpreting measurements of radioactive material in people is difficult unless one knows what each individual was exposed to, when the exposures occurred, and by what routes they occurred (ingestion, inhalation, etc.). In particular for Sr-90, dietary contributions from foodstuffs produced out of the region must be considered. Also, fallout in soil across the U.S. is not uniform. Rainfall, wind direction and soil composition all affect the levels of Sr-90 in soil. Finally, migration must be accounted for, because people may have lived and acquired radionuclides from a number of geographic locations that are not near a nuclear power plant. In addition, radioactive substances may come from a variety of sources. In the case of Sr-90, the primary source has always been fallout from atmospheric weapons tests (UNSCEAR 2001).
Cause-and-Effect Relationships and Scientific Methodology

Authors of the Radiation Public Health Project reports have stated or implied that claimed statistical associations between cancer rates and reactor operations are cause-and-effect relationships. However, statistical association alone does not prove causation, and well-established scientific methods must be used to determine that for two things that appear to be associated over time, it can be concluded that one causes the other.

A simple example helps illustrate this point. A college professor gives the following example of a causal inference: “In the winter I wear boots. In the winter I get colds. Therefore, boots cause colds.” A strong statistical association exists between wearing boots and the health effect of colds. There is, however, an argument about whether boots cause colds.

There are principles of good science that are recognized by the scientific community such as whether a study can be replicated; whether it has considered all data or was it selective (e.g., in the population or in the years studied); whether a study evaluated all possible explanations for the observations; was the data used evaluated for validity and reliability; and whether the study’s conclusions were subjected to independent peer review, evaluation and confirmation.

There are a number of questions about the Health Project studies with regard to methodology, assumptions, and conclusions. Generally, these studies have not followed good scientific principles. Frequently, they have

* not established control populations for study;
* not examined the impacts of other risk factors;
* used very small sample sizes to draw general conclusions;
* not performed environmental sampling and analysis;
* selectively chosen to ignore data in certain geographic locations or during certain periods of time because they did not “fit”;
* not subjected their data to the independent peer review of the scientific community as a whole; and
* used an incorrect half-life for Sr-90 which gives a false impression that strontium levels in the environment are decaying more rapidly than in baby teeth.

The evaluation of health effects from exposure to radiation is an ongoing activity of the NRC’s involving public, private and international institutions. The NRC routinely seeks out new scientific information that might reveal health and safety concerns. It reviews independent studies of nuclear safety issues and embraces opportunities to inform the public about the results of such reviews. Based on all the preceding discussion, NRC finds there is little or no credibility in the studies published by the Radiation Public Health Project.

Key Points

The Radiation Public Health Project (RPHP) has conducted a number of studies claiming radioactive strontium-90 (Sr-90) in the environment is responsible for increases in cancers.

One of the RPHP’s studies, sometimes referred to as the Tooth Fairy Project, reported that Sr-90 concentrations in baby teeth are higher in areas around nuclear power plants than in other areas.

Numerous peer-reviewed scientific studies do not support the RPHP’s claims. NRC finds there is little or no credibility in the RHP’s studies.

Approximately 99% of Sr-90 in the environment came from atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. The second largest source of Sr-90 in the environment was the Chernobyl accident.

The amount of Sr-90 from all commercial nuclear power plants is a tiny fraction of the amount from Chernobyl.

The estimated radiation dose from all sources of Sr-90 in the environment is approximately 0.3% of the dose that the average person in the United States receives from natural background radiation. These dose levels are well below the levels that are known to cause any health effects.

The NRC requires nuclear power plant licensees to monitor the releases of radioactivity from their facilities to the environment and to annually report these releases to the NRC. Additionally, these licensees are required to monitor the environment around their facilities and report results annually to NRC. The NRC routinely inspects these aspects of nuclear power plant licensee performance.

2. United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), 2001. Sources and Effects of Ionizing Radiation: UNSCEAR 2000 Report to the General Assembly, with Scientific Annexes. Vol. I: Sources. United Nations, New York.

South Ossetian separatist fighters
Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Experts are warning of volatility in the separatist regions
In the conflict-prone Caucasus, concern is mounting about a security vacuum following the end of the UN and OSCE’s observer missions. Just 200 EU monitors are left, and they’re facing a volatile situation.

Territorial tensions in the Caucasus have a long and tangled history, but since the break-up of the Soviet Union, Russia and Georgia have been repeatedly at odds over the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. It’s not surprising, then, that several international observer and military missions have been active in the region.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has had a mission in Georgia since 1992 to promote negotiations between conflicting parties and reach a peaceful political settlement. In 1993, the United Nations created UNOMIG, a military observer mission to verify compliance with a 1993 ceasefire agreement between Georgian and Abkhaz authorities.

Tensions again came to a head in August 2008 when Georgia launched a short but bloody attack on South Ossetia. Russia, which has long supported the province’s claims to independence, responded by pouring thousands of troops into South Ossetia. Georgian troops were forced out of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in a matter of days, with Russian troops also occupying parts of Georgia.

Under the ceasefire brokered with the help of then-EU president Nicolas Sarkozy, Russia agreed to pull its troops back into South Ossetia and Abkhazia, but was repeatedly accused by Western nations of failing to abide by the truce deal. Adding fuel to the fire, Russia officially recognized the independence of the breakaway provinces, a move strongly condemned by the West, which maintains that the provinces are part of Georgia.

OSCE mandate expires June 30

As a result, the European Union sent a team of 200 observers to Georgia to monitor compliance with the Six-Point Ceasefire Agreement. Their one-year mandate began on Oct.1, 2008.

The EU monitors had been working in close cooperation with the OSCE and UN missions, but now, the situation has changed dramatically.

Bildunterschrift:

The OSCE’s main mission to Georgia expired at the end of 2008, but the organization continued to be represented by 20 unarmed military monitors on a mandate that expires on June 30. Russia has scuppered negotiations on extending their mandate, and has denied them access to South Ossetia since the war.

Earlier this month, Russia also vetoed the extension of the UN mission in Georgia. The UN team had been monitoring the ceasefire along the border between Georgia and Abkhazia since the end of the war.

UN mission head Johan Verbeke said Russia’s veto would undermine stability in Abkhazia, leaving some 60,000 ethnic Georgians there unprotected.

We’ve contributed to ensuring that the population in Abkhazia had a secure environment in which to operate, Verbeke told Deutsche Welle. I think this mission did effectively contribute to peace and security.

Veil of secrecy

Now, that hard-won security is at stake. With the departure of the OSCE and UN observers, the EU has been left alone with around 200 monitors, who are unable to enter either South Ossetia or Abkhazia.

In sum, Russia has blinded the international community to what it is doing in the occupied Georgian territories, David J. Smith, director of the Georgian Security Analysis Center wrote on Georgiandaily.com, an independent English-language website based in New York. Behind its veil of secrecy, Russia can continue to strengthen military logistics, perhaps preparing another armed attack on the rest of Georgia.

A column of Russian armored vehicles, headed towards the breakaway republic of South Ossetia’s capital Tskhinvali, is seen in North Ossetia, Russia, Friday, Aug. 8, 2008Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: The international community is concerned about Russia’s activities in South Ossetia
In a recent briefing, the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank, also expressed its view that the lack of an effective security regime in and around the conflict zones of South Ossetia and Abkhazia create a dangerous atmosphere in which extensive fighting could again erupt.

Crisis Group called on Russia to re-engage fully in discussions with the Security Council in order to move past its June 15 veto and find a continued role for the UN in Georgia. It also called on the EU and other international organizations to invest the EU mission with an expanded role to address the situation on the ground.

The head of the EU mission, Joerg Haber, is nonetheless confident that his team will be able to carry out its task of furthering stability in the region and patrolling the border to South Ossetia, despite the loss of the OSCE and UN observers.

We have enough people and vehicles to patrol the area and continue our work, Haber told Deutsche Welle. Our mandate is not the same as those of the OSCE and the UN. The OSCE had broader powers than us, and the UN mission was mainly a mission of military observers. That’s different to what we do, but I think we’re well positioned to safeguard security here.

Haber added that he expects the EU member states to extend the mission in Georgia by another year at the end of July.

The parties exchanged opinions concerning the talks on the delimitation of the Sea of Azov, the Black Sea and Kerch Strait with regard to the results of the 31st round of meetings of the delegation of Ukraine and Russia, which took place in Moscow on June 16-17, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry’s press service said.

Besides, Khandohiy and Lavrov discussed the preparations to another meeting of the heads of the two states’ foreign ministries with the participation of governors of border regions, representatives of ministries and agencies of the two states slated for this year in Kharkiv.

The ministers also spoke about holding the third meeting of the subcommittee for international cooperation of the Ukrainian-Russian interstate commission.
The Kyiv Post is hosting comments and forums to foster lively debate. Criticism is fine, but stick to the issues. Comments that include profanity or personal attacks will be removed from the site. If you think that a posted comment violates these standards, please flag it and alert us. We will take steps to block violators.
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A former head of the armed forces has questioned the government’s plan to build two large aircraft carriers for the navy, now estimated to cost £5bn, and made clear that in his view the country could not afford them. Lord Guthrie, chief of defence staff when Labour came to power in 1997, described the two ships – which would be the biggest the navy has had – as enormously expensive .

A leaked memorandum by the consortium that would build the ships revealed on Monday that they were already running £1bn over budget, a 25% increase on the original estimated cost of £3.9bn.

Can we really afford to do that? Guthrie asked. Are there other, better ways of delivering sea power, maybe with more frigates? How good are aircraft carriers at chasing Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden? Does the navy really want to get locked up in two great aircraft carriers – its manning of it and its funding of it?

Guthrie was speaking at the launch of a report of the Institute for Public Policy Research thinktank’s national security commission. A fresh defence review would have to consider the whole range of military capabilities, including whether the army had too many tanks and not enough boots on the ground , he said.

If we are more likely to be involved in counter-insurgency than during the cold war, then presumably people are needed more than bombs, he added.

Lord Ashdown, former Liberal Democrat leader and a chairman of the IPPR commission, said Nato-led forces in Afghanistan were losing the struggle against the Taliban. He said it was a scandal that British troops were dying because of a failure of international co-ordination.

We are on the way to losing here, he said. The real scandal of Afghanistan is not that they haven’t got the right boots or the right helicopters. It is that our young men are dying out there because our politicians won’t get their act together. Guthrie criticised national restrictions imposed by some Nato allies in Afghanistan: Some do not go out at night. Ashdown said he believed there was now a £9bn black hole in the Ministry of Defence’s annual budget of £36bn. My own view is that this is absolutely monstrous.

The IPPR report says Britain can no longer afford to deliver a full spectrum . It says Britain should maintain a minimum credible independent nuclear deterrent , adding that a decision about replacing the existing fleet of Trident submarines need not, and should not, be taken until 2014.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia launched large-scale military exercises involving thousands of troops across parts of its southern regions on Monday which Georgia said would violate its territory.

The Defence Ministry said the sweep of the week-long Caucasus 2009 manoeuvres would include the volatile, mainly-Muslim regions of Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia – continuing focus of rebel groups seeking to prize the area from Moscow’s control.

Moscow sees the Caucasus mountains area as a strategically vital zone, the approach to prime agricultural and industrial regions and an important energy transit route. The Kremlin views any challenge here as a threat to the overall security and unity of a vast country stretching from the Baltic to the Pacific.

A senior Russian general said the manoeuvres would involve Russian troops stationed in the Georgian breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, though the extent of their participation was not clear.

Similar Russian exercises in the same region last August allowed Moscow to send troops and tanks into Georgia quickly to repel government troops who tried to retake South Ossetia. The brief war raised fears in the West over security of gas transit routes from the Caspian Sea to western Europe.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev criticised NATO for holding exercises close to the war zone in Georgia in May, saying they fuelled tension in the region. An annual event, the Russian exercises were planned before the NATO war games.

We are holding these exercises to boost the country’s defence where it is being threatened, Dmitry Rogozin, Russian envoy to NATO, said in a video link with Moscow journalists.

We will hold such exercises irrespective of NATO schedules. If we consider it important to strengthen our combat readiness on our sovereign territory, we will continue doing so.

The exercises will include drills by troops simulating a tense situation gradually escalating from a crisis into an armed conflict, the Defence Ministry said.

PURE PROVOCATION

Alexander Nalbandov, a Georgian deputy foreign minister, described the exercises as a a pure provocation from Russia.

The fact that the exercises are held not just on Russian territory, but on Georgia’s occupied territory, with the participation of thousands of soldiers and the involvement of so much military hardware, makes this situation even worse, he told Reuters.
The Russian exercises — which will include anti-terrorism drills — were launched two days after NATO and Russia resumed formal cooperation for the first time since last August’s war.

Russian forces have largely quelled a rebellion in the region of Chechnya after two wars, but rebels launch sporadic attacks there and in the neighbouring areas of Ingushetia and Dagestan. Last week the Kremlin-appointed president of Ingushetia, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, was severely wounded in an assassination attempt claimed by a Chechen group.

The exercises are due to end on July 6 when U.S. President Barack Obama arrives in Moscow for summit talks with Medvedev.

General Vladimir Boldyrev, commander of Russia’s Ground Forces, was quoted by Izvestia newspaper as saying the exercises would involve military bases in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which Russia has now recognized as independent of Georgia.

He did not say what part they would play.

Rogozin said he knew that a number of countries continued to supply Georgia with weapons, including offensive ones. Russia had earlier accused Ukraine and the United States of arming Georgia, allowing its army to reach its pre-war strength.

We hope that despite a lack of proper security guarantees for Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Georgia’s leadership will drop its military adventurism towards these republics, Rogozin said.

Because after each such military escapade Georgia’s territory risks to get smaller and smaller.

A senior Russian general said the manoeuvres would involve Russian troops stationed in the Georgian breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, though the extent of their participation was not clear.

***

In Black Sea port, Ukraine is sovereign, but Russia rules
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By Tom Lasseter | McClatchy Newspapers

SEVASTOPOL, Ukraine — As the Kremlin seeks to reassert its sphere of influence around its borders and beyond, this home port for Russia’s Black Sea fleet — marooned in the south of Ukraine after the breakup of the Soviet Union — has moved to the center of tensions between Russia and U.S. allies in the region.

Some Ukrainian politicians worry that Russia will stoke anti-Western sentiments in Sevastopol and cities around it on the Crimean peninsula to create an opportunity to annex the area, the same way Moscow did with two breakaway provinces in Georgia last month, or at least use its considerable influence here to push the central government in Kiev to drop plans to join the European Union and NATO.

Either move would heighten the rising tensions between Russia and the United States, which have returned to Cold War levels over the past year.

Georgia and Ukraine, with American backing, angered the Russian leadership with their NATO aspirations. If they were to join, Russia’s Black Sea coastline would be surrounded by members of the military organization.

Sergei Zayats, the administrator of Sevastopol’s largest district, said he thought the Russians would be willing to resort to force to keep their ships docked in Crimea, where their fleet has operated since the 1780s. The events in Georgia show that this may happen at any time, said Zayats, who was appointed by Kiev.

Russia has said it has no plans along those lines.

This is a myth brought to you from other countries that Crimea will be next, Vsevolod Loskutov, the number two man in the Russian Embassy to Ukraine, told journalists last week. Both Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin have repeated many times that we highlight our respect to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.

The tension over Crimea is complicated by the intertwined histories of Ukraine and Russia.

The region belonged to Russia until 1954, when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev handed it over to Ukraine. At the time, the difference was largely semantic, but when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, many in Crimea would have rather not become part of an independent Ukraine.

In interviews on the streets of Sevastopol, college students, engineers and housewives alike said they sympathized with Russia far more than with Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine’s pro-Western president. Any move to join NATO, they said, almost certainly would lead to a backlash.

The majority of people here are against NATO, said Viktor Kiselyov, a local artist. The reason is that NATO is confronting Russia, and Russia is us.

To smooth over the differences, Ukraine has allowed the region to become a semi-autonomous republic, bound by Ukrainian law but largely self-governed.

Earlier this year, Russian state news wires carried quotes by a senior member of the lower house of parliament in Moscow suggesting that Khrushchev’s decision might be revisited.

If Ukraine’s admission to NATO is accelerated, Russia could raise the question of which country the Crimea should be a part of, Alexei Ostrovsky, the head of the Duma’s committee on regional political affairs, was quoted as saying in April. The Russian Federation has legal grounds to revise agreements signed under Khrushchev.

While the Russian government denies issuing passports to residents of Crimea, a tactic used in Georgia to bolster claims that the Kremlin had to save its citizens there, the prosecutor’s office in Sevastopol says that an investigation that started two months ago already has found 1,500 residents with both Russian and Ukrainian passports, in violation of Ukrainian law.

Some of those passports were from the early 1990s, when the question of statehood was unclear, but others were issued during the past few years, said Alexander Rubstov, an official in the prosecutor’s office, who didn’t say how many passports fell into each of those categories. Rubstov said the inquiry in the city of about 430,000 residents still had a long way to go, and the numbers could rise.

Roman Zvarych, a top official in Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine party, said he thought Russia had passed out something in the neighborhood of several tens of thousands of passports in Crimea, a charge Moscow has denied.

What happens if in the Crimea these people carrying dual citizenship all of a sudden start saying they want to join Russia? Zvarych asked in an interview in his Kiev office. We would have to clamp down to ensure our territorial sovereignty.

That, he said, would give Russia an opening to exert serious diplomatic or military pressure.

By treaty, the fleet is supposed to leave Sevastopol and the rest of Crimea by 2017, but the Russian navy has shown little sign that it’s planning to do so.

During a recent news media tour organized by the Kremlin, naval officers showed off ships that dated to the early 1980s and earlier, and a massive artillery battery that last fired about half a century ago. While the equipment paled in comparison with modern Western militaries, it would be more than enough to ensure that the Ukrainians couldn’t force the Russians to vacate.

Giving up Crimea would be like a defeat in battle, said Capt. Igor Dygalo, a chief navy spokesman. Rear Adm. Andrei Baranov, the deputy commander of the fleet, said his government would honor legal obligations but added that: History can’t be crossed out.

Suggestions that Ukraine may want the fleet to leave sooner — a potentially crucial step in its NATO efforts — have been ignored. Ukrainian court orders to hand over control of more than 70 lighthouses, antennae stations and navigational sites in Crimea and nearby areas also have been brushed aside.

To draw any line here to issue an order to leave, this is very difficult, Dygalo said. What do you expect us to say now? That we shall leave? But this is not true.

On the second day of the Kremlin media tour in Sevastopol, two Orthodox priests led a group of reporters around a church dedicated to fallen sailors from the Russian fleet. They were careful to say that Russia and the U.S.-backed Ukrainian government should live in peace and understanding.

But by the third or fourth shot of vodka during a round of toasts at lunch, Father Igor Bebin stood up and said that during the Crimean War about 150 years ago, the West shuddered when Russia showed them the sword and the Black Sea turned red with blood.

And now, Bebin said in a thundering voice, the sword of Russia was finally shining once again. The Russian naval officers standing beside him shouted in agreement.

“And now, Bebin said in a thundering voice, the sword of Russia was finally shining once again. The Russian naval officers standing beside him shouted in agreement.”
Important Quote – from story above – especially in light of recent involvements – russia caucasus

***

I understand that however I wish to point this out to you the crusades were started on the same principle of Christianity being the only correct religion. Many have been killed in the name of god and Jesus. We know that now the basis of Jesus’s word to the masses was not to worship him, but that through him you would have a relationship with his father and only through god’s love can you enter the kingdom.
Jesus himself preached love for all no matter what or who they were. Fault not the witch for she cannot help what she is, just as a leper cannot help who he is…. word of god

I don’t think or believe that others are suppose to be involved in the relationship between you and god and I do not believe that once you have accepted the word that others should judge that relationship either, because as you judge you yourself are judge with the same measure. I do believe that priest are suppose to help strengthen, promote and help you with your path towards such but at the end of the day no one is suppose to force your hand in the relationship between you and god.

No one is perfect, that much is fact. Everyday we lie, screw up, and basically try to be decent people but that doesn’t always happen. Hence why its called Human Nature, and if god can forgive murders…by the way Moses was a murder and a pagen (Egyptian Prince), Abraham committed Adultery, Jacob stole from his brother and lied to his father. The Bible is filled with these things to show God’s compassion and mercy as well as his anger and wrath. Yet at no point does he ever say onto you to force and beat into submission those that differ from you in religion, views, or choice, and destroy those who refuse to listen or converse with me.

People are willing to look at certain parts of the Bible and Ignore the others. While the basic principle he has always tried to get across to us is seemingly lost. Help thy brother, neighbor or friend, no matter who or what they are. Love thy enemy as you love thy self. good will, decency, love for all of God’s creatures and things, and to promote the word of God with out the Hate and ugliness that is within the human scope of things.

help who you can and keep faith in god no matter what because things will work out in the end, its darkest before the dawn and even when Job lost everything he never lost faith. He didn’t even go out and take out his anger and frustration on the theives that took the things from him, or the land that didn’t produce the food. He kept working and kept faith, in the end he was rewarded.

That is what I want with people, accept others as God accepts his creatures, and love for all no matter what. For its not my place to judge others, just to help them on their way, God will work out the rest. Respect , acknowledgment, love and equality is how we start with that.

**
true, but this is the other thing, god also made consequences, and i think thats what fuels the fire of some, that they want people to follow gods rules so much and to go to heaven so much that they forget that the most important basis of christianity is love and that its the only way that they are saved at all or and it’s the only way that they are going to heaven, by jesus’ love, ya know?

“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win . . . ”
–President John F. Kennedy, address at Rice University, September 12, 1962

JFK Presidential Library Launches New Site That Invites the World On Board Apollo 11 — 40 Years Later.

Moon Shot – JFK and Space Exploration — A special new exhibit marking 40th anniversary of Moon Landing now on display.

It is easy for me to remember – July 20 is my birthday . . .
(and on my 11th birthday – Apollo 11 landed on the moon )

– cricketdiane

On May 25, 1961, he urged the nation to make that commitment. He appealed to the spirit of adventure, to patriotic pride, and to the cause of freedom. America responded with one of the greatest mobilizations of resources and manpower in U.S. history. Eight years later, on July 20, 1969, two American astronauts walked on the Moon. It was a stunning achievement that boosted American confidence and prestige at home and around the world.

Though he didn’t live to see it happen, it was JFK who harnessed America’s energies to the goal of sending a man to the Moon and returning him safely to Earth. This exhibit focuses on the elements that combined to achieve that success: the grand vision and hard science—the imagination and engineering—the poetry and power that characterized so much of the Kennedy Presidency.

***

Dress the Set With Tears: It’s a Wrap
Marissa Roth for The New York Times

A sign of the recession: 20th Century Props is set to close. More Photos >

NORTH HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — The rattan sofa from “The Golden Girls” awaits its next role from a shelf deep inside the 20th Century Props warehouse here. Nearby is the futuristic shower Tom Cruise used in “Minority Report” and an armchair that starred with Marilyn Monroe in multiple films. Overhead: Art Deco chandeliers from “The Aviator.”
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Marissa Roth for The New York Times

20th Century Props serves Hollywood with items like the alien from “The X-Files.” More Photos »

On Tuesday, Harvey Schwartz stood amid it all, in tears, wondering how his prop shop, which offers a vast inventory of items to be used in film and television productions, became the latest victim of a rapidly changing Hollywood.

Mr. Schwartz, the owner of 20th Century Props, plans to go out of business next month and auction the inventory. Battered by the surge in out-of-state movie production and the demise of scripted programming on network television, the once-thriving business — one of a handful of its type remaining — is failing.

“I ran out of money three months ago, and I don’t know what else to do,” he said softly. “It’s terrifying. I’ve devoted my entire life to something that is over.”

Set decorators are equally upset. “The closing of 20th Century is a disaster for us,” said Melinda Ritz, who won three Emmy Awards for her work on “Will & Grace.” “Harvey is a great person, and it’s one fewer place that offers one-stop shopping.” She added, “The fabric of Hollywood is fraying so fast that it’s scary.”

Not long ago all movie and television studios operated their own prop houses. A dozen independent companies did a brisk business filling in the gaps — an unusual medical device here, a 1960s-era radio there. Outside prop suppliers like 20th Century also handled commercials and period needs (Mr. Schwartz has a large inventory of Art Deco items) along with special events like lavishly decorated premiere parties.

Studios started gutting their prop departments in the 1990s to free space on their lots. Mr. Schwartz’s inventory — at last count 93,752 items, ranging from teacups to a life-size submarine — includes the former holdings of 20th Century Fox, for instance. Walt Disney and Paramount have also jettisoned their props divisions. (Sony, Universal and Warner Brothers are the holdouts, and they’re open to outside clients.)

Independents like Mr. Schwartz and Omega Cinema Props stayed healthy — despite runaway production and the rise of reality television — largely because of special-events divisions. Such events made up a third of the revenue at 20th Century Props just two years ago, Mr. Schwartz said.

But the recession has turned off that spigot. Add in a strike last year by movie and television writers and a continued slowdown in production caused by a threatened actors’ strike, and 20th Century Props could no longer stay afloat.

Mr. Schwartz said annual revenue was off by 30 percent last year; so far this year the figure is closer to 50 percent. He said he has been seeking a way to keep the collection together — via an investor or a sale to another prop company — but has so far come up short. The business had 28 employees at the beginning of the year; now it has 7.

“I’m a dinosaur, I guess,” Mr. Schwartz said.

Great American Group will liquidate the company’s inventory during the last week of July. The holdings are insured for about $8 million, but the value of many of the props is difficult to pin down because of the premium that memorabilia collectors will likely pay for better-known items.

Mr. Schwartz is a bit quirky himself. Trained as an aerospace engineer, he decided to go into the furniture business in the early 1970s, opening a small store near Beverly Hills and CBS Television City, a cluster of studios that is now home to shows like “American Idol.”

He developed a fondness for rattan (“Among other reasons, it was furniture I could lift by myself,” he said) and became an expert. He was an author of a 1999 book titled “Rattan Furniture: Tropical Comfort Throughout the House.” He favors his shirts unbuttoned to about midchest and has a habit of hanging his reading glasses there.

“I’m a little bit bananas, I know,” he said.

Walking through the 200,000-square-foot warehouse, which is hunkered amid a smattering of auto repair shops and porno stores in this seedy San Fernando Valley suburb, Mr. Schwartz comes off as the curator of a museum that just happens to rent out its treasures.

“Beyoncé has danced in this,” he said, motioning to a giant plastic Champagne glass. “See that chair way back there? Claudette Colbert sat in that in ‘Cleopatra,’ the 1934 version.” He paused to point out curved desks used at Ewing Oil on “Dallas” — he’s not certain if J. R. sat at one of them — and led a visitor through a maze of macabre items (jars filled with pickled piglets) to the spot where the morgue from “The X-Files” awaits another adventure.

Some of 20th Century’s holdings are antiques with famous provenances outside of the movies. For instance Mr. Schwartz claims to have Merv Griffin’s office chair and a giant Art Deco desk once owned by Howard Hughes (and subsequently used in “The Aviator”).
What are the most frequently rented items? Certain dining room chairs have gone out more than 500 times, Mr. Schwartz said. Also popular: a heart-shaped bed, which rents about twice a month. “We don’t ask too many questions with that one,” he said.

If everyone plants as many leafy plants as they can inside and out – we could save our oceans.

Plants are the original nano-material for converting carbon dioxide into oxygen and safe, usable nutrients.

We may not be able to put back trees as fast as they are being torn down in our communities – but we can make a difference by planting as many green things as we can – hostas, ferns, flowers, evergreens, vines like philodendrons, morning glories and ivys, vegies and treelings.

Plant five Green Things a week in your yard. If we all do that throughout the summer and fall across America, we can start lowering the carbon dioxide levels that are affecting our oceans. It will improve our air quality, too.

Add plants indoors, on porches, in windows, and in offices and businesses, too. It could buy the time our scientists, inventors and engineers need to implement the green solutions they’ve created.

Clip your plants and start new ones from them. Plant seeds and nursery seedlings. Add mulch for fertilizer. Plant roses and shrubs. Divide plants and make two or three from each. Its easy and fun. Children might help but its time for the grown-ups to lead the way.
Grow a Green Thing (or two) and Save The Seas.

Written by Cricket Diane C Phillips
Cricket House Studios – 2008

Feel free to forward this and please let’s help each other to get some stuff planted. Thanks!

Polar Science – Global Impact

The IPY Oslo Science Conference will demonstrate, strengthen, and extend the International Polar Year’s accomplishments in science and outreach. The conference is an essential opportunity to display and explore the full breadth and implications of IPY activities. The international and interdisciplinary science conference will in particular highlight the global impact of the changes that have been observed in the Polar Regions.

Registration

The Registration and Hotel booking systems are now open. Deadline for early bird registration is 8th March.

Programme

Published: 12.08.2009

The IPY Oslo Science Conference will emphasize the breadth and global impact of polar research during IPY. It will highlight the extraordinary interdisciplinary and multinational efforts in research and in communication of research to the public.

NOTE: The wording of titles might be changed from what is in 2nd Circular. Session titles will be kept up to date on the website. The secretariate will also keep the programme POSTER updated. Refer to the Downloads section.

Participants will present early scientific results from all the IPY themes, particularly in the urgent areas of:

Theme 1. Linkages between Polar Regions and global systems

Theme 2. Past, present and future changes in Polar Regions

Theme 3. Polar ecosystems and biodiversity

Theme 4. Human dimensions of change: Health, society and resources

Theme 5. New frontiers, data practices and directions in polar research

Theme 6. Polar science education, outreach and communication

PolarEXPO

The PolarEXPO will be held at Norway Convention and Exhibition Centrein conjunction with IPY-OSC 2010. PolarEXPO 2010 can accommodate more than 200 exhibitors. About 3000 participants are expected.

The IPY-OSC 2010 and PolarEXPO provides a meeting spot for people from a huge variety of companies, private and governmental research institutions, universities as well as all the organisations coordinating and facilitating polar research in the Arctic and Antarctica.

PolarEXPO is the ideal opportunity for contacts, exchange of experience and business opportunities for all those who work either as scientists or business operators in the relevant fields. It is also an ideal setting for science publishers to display their most recent books and journals. A large number of students will be present at the conference, and exhibitors should also consider the PolarEXPO as a unique venue for recruitment. We look forward to see state-of-the-art equipment, products and services.

The venue is located midway between Oslo International Airport and the city centre, and encompasses a total of 38000 m2.

Some exhibitor categories will be particularly relevant to the IPY-OSC participants:

Price per sq.m. Euro 400 + VAT
Depth is always 6 meters. Open stand price comes with only floor space and must be at least 36 sq.m. in total.
Prices for stand equipment for open stands can be found on separate pricelist, sent out 3-4 months before the exhibition.

Click on the symbol or for advisories and warnings on the tropical cyclone.

Click on the symbol for information from individual WMO Members participating in the web site.

Click on individual boxes to view zoom-in maps.

This page is best viewed with a display resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels.

The information in this World Meteorological Organization (WMO) website is based on advisories issued by Regional Specialized Meteorological Centres (RSMCs) and Tropical Cyclone Warning Centres (TCWCs), and official warnings issued by National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) for their respective countries or regions. The media may use this information for their broadcasting services on the radio or TV. When doing so, it should be indicated that they are issued by the respective RSMCs, TCWCs or NMHSs.

As different participating Members may give different locations, intensities or even names for the same Tropical Cyclone, to avoid confusion, only the information supplied by the RSMC or TCWC responsible for the region is displayed graphically on the maps.

Weak sea walls blamed for France storm disaster

Blame is being laid on weak and aged sea defences after violent storms left at least 50 dead and thousands homeless along France’s Atlantic coast.

Many died after the sea wall off the coastal town of L’Aiguillon-sur-Mer was breached, allowing 8m-high (26ft) waves to crash through the streets.

A local governor said the walls dated back to the time of Napoleon and needed to be replaced with taller barriers.

[ . . . ]

The Atlantic storm, named Xynthia, smashed into the western coasts of France, Portugal and Spain on Sunday, with torrential rain driven by winds of up to 140km/h (87mph).

The storm has since swept north-eastwards into Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. and deaths have been reported in Portugal, Spain, Belgium and Germany.

Napoleonic walls

While many L’Aiguillon-sur-Mer residents were trying to be stoical about the situation, there is some anger in the town that not enough had been done to maintain its sea defences, says the BBC’s Emma Jane Kirby in the town.

Poor planning was also being blamed for constructing a mobile home park so close to the old sea wall.

[ etc.]

French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said flood prevention dykes would be strengthened.

“The priority now is to make all the homeless people safe, all the people who are still threatened by the rising waters,” he said.

More than a million homes in France have lost electricity, from the Brittany peninsula in the west to the highlands of the Massif Central.

Statement From Dr. Jane Lubchenco on the Death of Sam D. Hamilton, Director of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

February 22, 2010

I was deeply saddened to learn of Sam Hamilton’s untimely death this weekend. Sam was a wonderful colleague for whom we at NOAA had deep admiration. The NOAA family shares in this great loss to the conservation community, and we extend our sincere condolences to Sam’s family and to all of our colleagues at the Department of the Interior.

Sam was, above all, a true champion of wildlife conservation. Those of us who worked with Sam on restoration efforts in the Florida Everglades and the Gulf of Mexico greatly appreciated his passion, integrity, knowledge and devotion to conservation issues and to people. His unique ability to work across agencies and with diverse stakeholders to craft meaningful solutions to challenging problems was legendary. It will surely be a part of his legacy and a model for all of us.

It can be said that Sam enriched all of our lives and made our nation stronger. We will miss him dearly.

Dr. Jane Lubchenco
Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and NOAA Administrator

Climate

In an announcement on Feb. 8, 2010, the Department of Commerce and NOAA proposed establishing a NOAA Climate Service

Individuals and decision-makers across widely diverse sectors – from agriculture to energy to transportation – are increasingly asking NOAA for information about climate change in order to make the best choices for their families, communities and businesses. To meet the rising tide of these requests, this newly proposed line office would be dedicated to bringing together the agency’s strong climate science and service delivery capabilities.

About the NOAA Climate Service

The NOAA Climate Service will encompass a core set of longstanding NOAA capabilities with proven success. The climate research, observations, modeling, predictions and assessments generated by NOAA’s top scientists – including Nobel Peace Prize award-winners – will continue to provide the scientific foundation for extensive on-the-ground climate services that respond to several requests each day for data and other critical information.

This web site offers background materials relating to NOAA’s plans as well as background materials that will help explain the internal and external input that led to the Climate Service’s creation. Please check back frequently for updates.

Background Information

The State of Climate Science [pdf]
Testimony from NOAA Administrator, Dr. Jane Lubchenco, hearing on “The State of Climate Science” before the U.S. House of Representatives Select Energy Independence and Global Warming. December 2, 2009. With permission from: CQ Congressional Transcripts

Climate change is real. It is here, and it is happening now, in our backyards and around the globe.Dr. Jane Lubchenco
NOAA Administrator

***

The National Climatic Data Center is the world’s largest active archive of weather and climate data. These are the cornerstone for the prediction of future events, which affect the world’s environment and economy. NCDC responds to data requests from all over the world.

NCDC is the authoritative source for climate monitoring. State of the Climate reports are published monthly and annually for the United States and the globe.

(also found on this page by clicking on the tab above the entries already listed -)

National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) provides scientific stewardship, products, and services for geophysical data from the sun to the Earth and the Earth’s sea floor and solid Earth environment, including Earth observations from space.

Through NODC archive and access services, these ocean data are used to answer questions about climate change, ocean phenomena, and management of coastal and marine resources, marine transportation, recreation, national security, and natural disasters. Another significant user community is Education, where these data and information products help teach each new generation of students about the oceans. Requests for oceanographic data and information have increased each year since the Center was established in 1961.

The mission of the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) is to provide scientific stewardship of national and international marine environmental and ecosystem data and information.

The NODC archives and distributes global oceanographic data and information. The data is used to preserve a historical record of the Earth’s changing environment for ocean climate research, and for operational applications. NODC provides data products and services to scientists, engineers, resource managers, policy makers, outdoor adventurers and hobbyists, as well as other users in the United States and around the world.

NODC’s Ocean Archive System can also be queried for ocean datasets that contain ocean profiles. This system does not search individual profiles, but whole datasets that were originally submitted to the NODC (i.e., blocks of data). If you want to search and retrieve ocean profiles, your better option may be WODselect.

This page provides public access to real-time data from the GTSPP Continuously Managed Database. Individual files are arranged in monthly segments and then compressed in single data sets, accordingly, by using the “gzip” utililty progam. We invite you to explore the data sets.

The Office of Satellite Data Processing and Distribution (OSDPD) manages and directs the operation of the central ground facilities which ingest, process, and distribute environmental satellite data and derived products to domestic and foreign users.

Below is the latest OSEI Image of the Day. It has been reduced in size for display purposes. For the full-resolution version and more detailed images of significant environmental events be sure to visit the event directories on our website at http://www.osei.noaa.gov/. The “Current” directory contains the latest imagery produced by the OSEI team.

These web pages are designed and maintained by the Operational Significant Event Imagery support team of the Satellite Services Division (SSD) of the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS).

Seismic Repair and Strengthening of Concrete Columns with Glass or Carbon FRP

Reinforced Concrete columns or bridge piers can be efficiently strengthened with Glass FRP (GFRP) or Carbon FRP (CFRP). Older (pre-1970s) columns have two major shortcomings; they are inadequately confined (usually a No. 3 or 4 tie placed at a spacing of 12 inches) and the ends of the ties are not properly anchored in the core region. During an earthquake, the ties open and allow the longitudinal steel to buckle, leading to failure of the column.

The viewer is available for free download currently – here (and a package to create these 3D and 4D dynamic maps are available for purchase there also which is probably way more than I will ever have, but its good to know that it exists . . . That’s like the ASTM files that are available for only $10,000 a year that I would love to have – maybe by next lifetime, my note).

Please note, due to an increase in unauthorized downloads, Fledermaus and it’s patches are now available only to customers who hold a valid license. To gain access to the software, please enter the Host ID associated with your Fledermaus license in the field below (Your Host ID is your Ethernet (Mac) address or your dongle Flex-ID. You could check for your Host-ID or Flex-ID in your license file, License.dat.). If you wish to obtain a license to the software, please contact IVS3D.

Download iView4DDownload iView4D, the free viewer for Fledermaus files. (By the way, make sure and check for the 32-or 64 versions for Windows 7.)

Some of the information that can be viewed from Scripps Oceanographic – the Library also has presentation materials, movies, tutorials, and online tools on this page:

Seismic-Eruption is a wonderful program conceived and written by Alan L. Jones at SUNY Binghamton. This program as well as his Seismic Waves program are part of the new Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems, and Minerals at the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC which opened September 20, 1997. We use Seismic-Eruption in Show-Me-Geology to demonstrate basic characteristics of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and to engage kids in thought provoking questions.

Below is an example lesson using Seismic-Eruption that was developed for pre-service teachers at SDSU in the Natural Sciences 412D class. There are all kinds of fun informative exercises you can have kids work on with this program. Have fun!

To Start Program:

Go to the Start menu in Windows and select Programs, then Seismology and then “Seismic Eruption” which will launch the program. Press “Go” to begin.

To make choices of views: select a group. The Red Box that says “Back, leads you to previous menus. Most menu options are self explanatory, so when you need to do something look for the options under the various pull down menus. You can turn off the audio using these menus – or turn down the audio volume on your computer monitor if you wish.

Investigations of the World View

Select the “World View”. The program with start running – illustrating where and when earthquakes and volcanic eruptions have occurred around the world. Notice the following:

the time scale bar at the bottom left that shows the dates. How many years is represented in this time sequence? _________

earthquake and eruption counters keep track of the number of quakes and eruptions over time.

How many quakes in this time interval worldwide? _________

How many earthquakes on average each day? __________

How many volcanic eruptions over the entire time interval? _____________

Once the World View sequence has displayed all the quakes and eruptions up to the present time – click on the “Information” button in the lower right of the map window. Use the information there to answer the following questions:

At any particular moment, about how many volcanoes on Earth might be actually erupting lava, pumice or ash? _____________________

Remote sea-floor volcanic eruptions at the mid-oceanic ridges are in most cases difficult or impossible to detect. However, what advanced technology is starting to bring sea-floor eruption sites into the realm of study? _____________________

Investigations of the January 1994 Northridge earthquake

From the “World View” above, select the “Back” button to return to the “World Menu”.

Select “North American Group” from the World Menu.

Select “California Group” from the North American Group.

Select “Northridge 1995 Group” from the California menu.

Select “Northridge California 1995”. The program will start running.

What is the time interval run for the Northridge quake? __________________

How many quakes occurred in this interval of time? ________________

Note that the default speed of the program runs at 5 hours/sec. Adjust this speed so that the program runs at 1 hour/sec and hit the “Repeat” button. Watch carefully as the time of the quake (Jan 17 04:31) approaches. Were there any foreshocks that might have helped seismologists that a major earthquake was imminent? ____________

In the map view, major earthquake faults in Southern California are shown by the blue lines. Does the main shock of the Northridge quake occur on any of these mapped faults?

Where are almost all of the aftershocks of the Northridge 1995 earthquake located relative to the main shock? ______________

Northridge Cross-Section

From the screen above, select the “Back” button followed by “Northridge Cross-Section”. The program will begin – let it run through. This program is showing a cross-sectional view through the Earth which displays the depth distribution of quakes associated with the Northridge event. The default speed is 4 days/sec. Slow this all the way down to 1 hour/sec and play it again – this time examining more closely the pattern produced by the Northridge quake and its aftershock sequence.

At what depth did the main shock occur? ______________

Draw a simple sketch below showing the likely geometry of the fault (note that the shallowest earthquakes DO NOT fall directly on the fault – these are distributed in a group above the fault).

Can you guess what kinds of structures may be associated with the shallowest group of earthquakes?

Senators grill NASA chief on President Obama’s space plan

06:05 PM

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) urged President Barack Obama and NASA to set a goal of getting to Mars as senators lashed the agency chief Wednesday for proposing to end the Constellation rocket program that aimed to return to the moon and to Mars.NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden Jr. said told a Senate Science subcommittee that he and the White House agreed with the goal of reaching Mars is “the ultimate destination.” But Bolden said he couldn’t set a date for that goal because research funded in the budget needs to find better propulsion and research longer-term space travel on people.

“We want to go to Mars,” Bolden said. “We can’t get there because we don’t have the technology.”

The clash occurred at the first hearing on Obama’s NASA budget released Feb. 1. The budget canceled the Constellation program, which NASA officials said was unrealistic after being underfunded for years.

(etc.) [my note, – and why aren’t they making the new generation of space shuttle system that is needed – what happened to America and our abilities in the space program being first and foremost to national security, to domestic opportunities and to our willingness to pursue science? How do they expect any of us to be inspired to be involved in math, science and technology when every thing that utilizes these things are being discarded and thrown away with nothing short of contempt?]

This image depicting the current El Niño condition in the Pacific Ocean was created with data collected by the U.S./European Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason-2 satellite during a 10-day period centered on Jan. 30, 2010. Image credit: NASA/JPL Ocean Surface Topography Team› Larger view
Climatologists have long known that human-produced greenhouse gases have been the dominant drivers of Earth’s observed warming since the start of the Industrial Revolution. But other factors also affect our planet’s temperature. Of these, the ocean plays a dominant role. Its effects helped nudge global temperatures slightly higher in 2009, and, according to NASA scientists, could well contribute to making 2010 the warmest year on record.

Covering 71 percent of our planet’s surface, the ocean acts as a global thermostat, storing energy from the sun, keeping Earth’s temperature changes moderate and keeping climate change gradual. In fact, the ocean can store as much heat in its top three meters (10 feet) as the entire atmosphere does.

“The vast amount of heat stored in the ocean regulates Earth’s temperature, much as a flywheel regulates the speed of an engine,” said Bill Patzert, an oceanographer and climatologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “The ocean has a long history of capturing and giving up heat generated by both human activities and natural cycles; it is the thermal memory of the climate system.”

Heat and moisture from the ocean are constantly exchanged with Earth’s atmosphere in a process that drives our weather and climate. Scientists at NASA and elsewhere use a variety of direct and satellite-based measurements to study the interactions between the ocean and atmosphere.

“These interactions result in large-scale global climate effects, the largest of which is the El Niño-Southern Oscillation,” explained Josh Willis, a JPL oceanographer and climate scientist. This climate pattern appears in the tropical Pacific Ocean roughly every four to 12 years and has a powerful impact on the ocean and the atmosphere. It can disrupt global weather and influence hurricanes, droughts and floods. It can also raise or lower global temperatures by up to 0.2 degrees Celsius (0.4 degrees Fahrenheit).

The oscillation pattern is made up of linked atmospheric and oceanic components. The atmospheric component is called the Southern Oscillation, a pattern of reversing surface air pressure that see-saws between the eastern and western tropical Pacific. The ocean’s response to this atmospheric shift is known as either “El Niño” or “La Niña” (Spanish for “the little boy” and “the little girl,” respectively).

Where the wind blows

During El Niño, the normally strong easterly trade winds in the tropical eastern Pacific weaken, allowing warm water to shift toward the Americas and occupy the entire tropical Pacific. Heavy rains tied to this warm water move into the central and eastern Pacific. El Niño can cause drought in Indonesia and Australia and disrupt the path of the atmospheric jet streams over North and South America, changing winter climate.

Large El Niños, such as the most powerful El Niño of the past century in 1997 to 1998, tend to force Earth’s average temperatures temporarily higher for up to a year or more. Large areas of the Pacific can be one to two degrees Celsius (around two to four degrees Fahrenheit) above normal, and the average temperature of the ocean surface tends to increase. The current El Niño began last October and is expected to continue into mid-2010. Scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies in New York estimate that if this pattern persists, 2010 may well go down as the warmest year on record.

El Niño’s cold counterpart is La Niña. During La Niña, trade winds are stronger than normal, and cold water that usually sits along the coast of South America gets pushed to the mid-equatorial region of the Pacific. La Niñas are typically associated with less moisture in the air and less rain along the coasts of the Americas, and they tend to cause average global surface temperatures to drop. The last La Niña from 2007 to 2009 helped make 2008 the coolest year of the last decade. The end of that La Niña last year and subsequent transition into an El Niño helped contribute to last year’s return to near-record global temperatures.

All the ocean’s a stage

Both El Niño and La Niña play out on a larger stage that operates on decade-long timescales. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation, or PDO for short, describes a long-term pattern of change in the Pacific Ocean that alternates between cool and warm periods about every five to 20 years. The PDO can intensify the impacts of La Niña or diminish the impacts of El Niño. In its “cool, negative phase,” warm water, which causes higher-than-normal sea-surface heights (because warmer water expands and takes up more space), forms a horseshoe pattern that connects the north, west and south Pacific with cool water in the middle. In its “warm, positive phase,” these warm and cool regions are reversed, and warm water forms in the middle of the horseshoe.

Such phase shifts of the PDO result in widespread changes in Pacific Ocean temperatures and have significant global climate implications. During the 1950s and 1960s, the PDO was strongly negative, or cool, and global temperatures seemed to level off. During most of the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, the Pacific was locked in a strong positive, or warm, PDO phase and there were many El Niños. We are currently in the early stages of a cool PDO phase that began around 2006. Cool, negative phases tend to dampen the effects of El Niños.

Willis said the PDO, El Niño and La Niña can strongly affect global warming due to increased greenhouse gases. “These natural climate phenomena can sometimes hide global warming caused by human activities, or they can have the opposite effect of accentuating it,” he explained.

Wild ride

“These natural signals — El Niños, La Niñas and PDOs — can modulate the global record for a decade or two, giving us a wild ride with major climate and societal impacts,” said Patzert. “They can have a powerful short-term influence on global temperatures in any particular year or decade. This can make it appear as if global warming has leveled off or become global cooling. But when you look at the long-term trend over the past 130 years, our world is definitely getting warmer. And that’s the human-produced greenhouse gas signal.”

Patzert said the recent climate record is like making a drive from the coast to the mountains. “As you rise slowly to higher and higher elevations, occasionally you hit a major speed bump, such as the 1997 to 1998 El Niño, and temperatures spike; or you hit potholes, such as cooler phases of the PDO, and temperatures dip,” he said. “In the end, though, we still tend toward the top of the mountain, and the trend upwards is clear. We are driving ourselves into a warmer world.”

In-Depth: Earth Topics

Global Climate Change

Beginning August 26, 2009, and continuing into September 2009, a large wildfire in the Angeles National Forest north of Los Angeles known as the Station Fire burned more than 140,000 acres through September 3. Carbon monoxide in the smoke from this large fire was lofted as high as 8.3 kilometers (27,000 feet) into the atmosphere, where it was observed by JPL’s Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument onboard NASA’s Aqua satellite.

This movie, created using continuously updated data from NASA’s “Eyes on the Earth 3-D” feature on NASA’s global climate change website, shows three-day running averages of daily AIRS retrievals of the abundance of carbon monoxide present at 5.5 kilometers (18,000 feet). AIRS is most sensitive to carbon monoxide at this altitude, which is a region conducive to long-range transport of the smoke. As the carbon monoxide is lifted by the fire’s heat and blows downwind, it appears in the August 30 AIRS map north and east of the fire as a yellow to red plume that stretches from Southern California across Nevada and Utah.

Fires Around Lake Malawi in Africa

Fires continued to burn around eastern Africa’s Lake Malawi (Lake Nyasa) on October 13, 2009. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this true-color image the same day. The fires were likely set for purposes of agriculture, a common occurrence at this time of year.

Red dots indicate hotspots associated with actively burning . . .

(Slide number 10 in the series found on this page of World fires – South America is generally pretty interesting for burn off fires, too)

A new NASA study indicates that motor vehicles are the greatest contributor to atmospheric warming: They release greenhouse gases that promote warming, while emitting few aerosols that counteract it.

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NASA Adds Extensive Data to Open Government Initiative Web Site

01.22.10

Learn more about Open Government at WhiteHouse.gov An Earth dataset visualization showing topography with the data overlaid on the Earth found within the The Global Change Master Directory. This catalog of data was created to enable users to access datasets and services relevant to global change and Earth science research. Image Credit: NASA. NASA has contributed a wide range of scientific data to the new publicly accessible Web site “Data.gov” in accordance with the administration’s Open Government Directive issued in Dec. 2009.

The purpose of Data.gov is to increase public access to high value datasets generated by the Executive Branch of the federal government. Public users may search for information by topic or by accessing the data contributed by any of the 24 participating major government departments and agencies.

The data may be read on line or downloaded to improve public knowledge of the agency and its operations; potentially create economic opportunities; or respond to need and demand as identified through public or industry consultation.

NASA products are in the Tool and GeoData Catalogs. Tool Catalog products include planet counter and climate change widgets and various Earth observation and other analysis utilities. In the GeoData Catalog, the agency posted more than 600 datasets across a wide range of imagery, maps, atmospheric, climate, geological and geophysical data. NASA will continuously update and add new data sets as they become available.

NASA’s submission of an additional 18 catalogs released today is the first milestone within the Open Government Directive. Over the coming weeks, NASA will release a new Web site and provide a platform for public participation and engagement becoming a more transparent, participatory and collaborative agency.

Land surface temperature is how hot the “surface” of the Earth would feel to the touch in a particular location. From a satellite’s point of view, the “surface” is whatever it sees when it looks through the atmosphere to the ground. It could be snow and ice, the grass on a lawn, the roof of a building, or the treetops in a forest. Thus, land surface temperature is not the same as the air temperature that is included in the daily weather report.

An anomaly is when the conditions depart from average conditions for a particular place at a given time of year. The maps show daytime land surface temperature anomalies for a given month compared to the average conditions during that period between 2000-2008. Places that were warmer than average are red, places that were near normal are white, and places that were cooler than average are blue. The observations were collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite.

Some land surface temperature anomalies are simply random weather phenomena, not part of a specific pattern or trend. Others anomalies are more meaningful. Widespread cold anomalies may be an indication of a harsh winter with lots of snow on the ground. Small, patchy warm anomalies that appear in forests or other natural ecosystems may indicate deforestation or insect damage. Many urban areas also show up as hot spots in these maps because developed areas are often hotter in the daytime than surrounding natural ecosystems or farmland. Warm anomalies that persist over large parts of the globe for many years can be signs of global warming.

Land Surface Temperature Anomaly

Land surface temperature is how hot the “surface” of the Earth would feel to the touch in a particular location. From a satellite’s point of view, the “surface” is whatever it sees when it looks through the atmosphere to the ground. It could be snow and ice, the grass on a lawn, or the roof of a building. These maps compare daytime land surface temperatures in a particular month to the average temperatures for that month from 2000-2008. Places that were warmer than average are red, places that were near normal are white, and places that were cooler than average are blue. The observations were collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite.

Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly

Sea surface temperature refers to the temperature of the top millimeter of the ocean. An anomaly is a departure from average conditions. These maps compare temperatures in a given month to the long-term average temperature of that month from 1985 through 1997. Blue shows temperatures that were cooler than average, white shows near-average temperatures, and red shows where temperatures were warmer than average. Regions for which no data were available are gray. The maps are made from data collected by the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-EOS (AMSR-E) compared to historical data collected by a series of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellites.

My Note – this is the crap coming from our cars, jets, trucks, trains and ships into the air we are breathing and across every city and county in America . . . And, that is the problem that is creating the climate change, air and water pollution, mucky brown air over our cities and rural communities where industrial areas are now located, and why walking to the store is as bad as sticking our lungs into the exhaust stream from a car only more so because of the number of cars and concentration of the pollutants on our streets – cricketdiane

EPA has conducted an extensive review of the literature to produce a list of the compounds identified in the exhaust or evaporative emissions from onroad and nonroad equipment, using baseline as well as alternative fuels (e.g., ethanol, biodiesel, compressed natural gas). This list, the Master List of Compounds Emitted by Mobile Sources, and the documentation for the development of the list are available here:

What is EPA Doing About Mobile Source Air Toxics?

In February 2007, EPA finalized a rule to reduce hazardous air pollutants from mobile sources (Control of Hazardous Air Pollutants from Mobile Sources, February 9, 2007). The rule will limit the benzene content of gasoline and reduce toxic emissions from passenger vehicles and gas cans. EPA estimates that in 2030 this rule would reduce total emissions of mobile source air toxics by 330,000 tons and VOC emissions (precursors to ozone and PM2.5) by over 1 million tons.

By 2010, EPA’s existing programs will reduce mobile source air toxics by over one million tons from 1999 levels. In addition to controlling pollutants such as hydrocarbons, particulate matter, and nitrogen oxides, EPA’s recent regulations controlling emissions from highway vehicles and nonroad equipment also result in large air toxic reductions. Furthermore, EPA has programs under development that would provide additional benefits from further controls for small nonroad gasoline engines and diesel locomotive and marine engines. Finally, EPA has developed a variety of programs to reduce risk in communities, such as Clean School Bus USA, the Voluntary Diesel Retrofit Program, and National Clean Diesel Campaign.

Assessment

Risk

National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment for 1999 includes 177 air toxics, a subset of the air toxics on the Clean Air Act’s list of 187 air toxics, as well as diesel particulate matter, an indicator of diesel exhaust.

Philadelphia Toxic Air Pollutants Risk Reduction Project: EPA and Philadelphia Air Management Services are conducting a joint project called the “Philadelphia Toxic Air Pollutants Risk Reduction Project” to help reduce the threat to their health which Philadelphia’s residents face from exposure to air toxics.

Even while screaming about people who smoke – and how much our government in the US cares about our health – look what every county school system in America is subjecting our children and our communities to breathing knowing what they do –

Health Effects Institute is an independent, nonprofit corporation chartered in 1980 to provide high-quality, impartial, and relevant science on the health effects of pollutants from motor vehicles and from other sources in the environment.

“Engines within the existing fleet will not be subject to the new regulations, yet may remain in operation for another 25 – 30 years.” (despite the knowledge that health damages do occur and particularly more so in “children that breathe 50 percent more air per pound of body weight than do adults.” – from same document.)

(and)

Diesel exhaust contains tiny particles known as fine particulate matter. Diesel engines are one of the largest sources of fine particulate matter, other than natural causes such as forest fires. Diesel exhaust also contains ozone-forming nitrogen oxides and toxic air pollutants. Exposure to these pollutants causes lung damage and aggravates existing respiratory disease. (note – a look at the health effects of the individual toxic pollutants in diesel exhaust fumes which are commonly found in concentration within the school buses reveal a long list of other sicknesses, physical damages, diseases, difficulties and harms that these exhaust fume chemicals are known to cause – which are not listed here on this document, my note.)

Clean School Bus USA is EPA’s national partnership to minimize pollution from school buses. Leaders from corporate America, children’s health, environmental and governmental organizations gather to design a plan to reduce children’s exposure to diesel exhaust by eliminating unnecessary school bus idling, installing effective emission control systems on newer buses and replacing the oldest buses in the fleet with newer ones. For more information contact the Clean School Bus USA Team at (734) 214-4780 or email: CleanSchoolBusUSA@epa.gov.

EPA’s Voluntary Diesel Retrofit Program works to reduce pollution, including air toxics, resulting from existing diesel vehicles and equipment by encouraging fleet owners to install pollution-reducing devices on the vehicles and to use cleaner-burning diesel fuel.

Best Workplaces for Commuters is a voluntary program, now administered by the Center for Urban Transportation Research (CUTER), offering innovative solutions to commuting challenges faced by employers and employees. Reducing vehicle miles traveled is an effective way to reduce air toxics risk in communities.

Health Effects Notebook for Hazardous Air Pollutants

The fact sheets available on this Web page describe the effects on human health of substances that are defined as hazardous by the 1990 amendments of the Clean Air Act. These substances include certain volatile organic chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, and radionuclides that present tangible hazard, based on scientific studies of exposure to humans and other mammals. There is uncertainty in the precise degree of hazard, and readers are cautioned that the fact sheets may be revised as additional data become available.

About the Health Effects Fact Sheets

List of Health Effects Fact Sheets

The available fact sheets are listed below, alphabetically by chemical name. The list includes the Chemical Abstract Service Number (CAS No.) for each chemical, and the name of an HTML file containing the health effects fact sheet.

The extraordinary available information here about earthquakes, about why columns in concrete slab buildings disintegrate during earthquakes, sometimes during floods and hurricanes as well as from fatigue within the structure, about sources of fires from clear burning the land around the world and community air pollution from and within school buses, temperature charts from the land and the sea provided by NASA and those beautifully conscientiously created 3d graphs of earthquakes probably don’t all seem to go together. But, it seems to me that they do all fit, not only for the things they can teach me about the bigger picture, but also that the problems created by the way we have done things for the past 130 years are more dramatic and pervasive than some simple explanation about CO2 in the atmosphere. To fix these things through geoengineering, geotech, extreme engineering possibilities and with a real confrontation of the actual elements that have been created, is going to take a genuine change in attitude about what is most important – and to change the idea that it must have to be either economics or people? Why can’t it conscionably be both?

Long Beach, California (CNN) — Microsoft Corp. founder and philanthropist Bill Gates on Friday called on the world’s tech community to find a way to turn spent nuclear fuel into cheap, clean energy.

“What we’re going to have to do at a global scale is create a new system,” Gates said in a speech at the TED Conference in Long Beach, California. “So we need energy miracles.”

Gates called climate change the world’s most vexing problem, and added that finding a cheap and clean energy source is more important than creating new vaccines and improving farming techniques, causes into which he has invested billion of dollars.

[ . . . ]

“We have to drive full speed and get a miracle in a pretty tight timeline,” he said.

Gates said the deadline for the world to cut all of its carbon emissions is 2050. He suggested that researchers spend the next 20 years inventing and perfecting clean-energy technologies, and then the next 20 years implementing them.

For over 45 years there have been designs created, inventions made, breakthroughs accomplished in these areas. Bill Gates needs to speak with the CEOs and corporations throughout the US that have bought, hijacked and shelved these designs and inventions along with their patents. We don’t have another twenty years to fix this energy problem and the inherent pollution of the way it has been being done.

This cell is extremely promising because it is made of low-cost materials and does not need elaborate apparatus to manufacture. In bulk it should be significantly less expensive than older solid-state cell designs. It can be engineered into flexible sheets and is mechanically robust, requiring no protection from minor events like hail or tree strikes. Although its conversion efficiency is less than the best thin-film cells, its price/performance ratio (kWh/(m2·annum·dollar)) should be high enough to allow them to compete with fossil fuel electrical generation (grid parity). Commercial applications, which were held up due to chemical stability problems[4], are now forecast in the European Union Photovoltaic Roadmap to be a potentially significant contributor to renewable electricity generation by 2020.

Most solar cells are made of amorphous silicon. The problem with this is that the silicon must be of a very

Solar cells in the field

high purity and have a near perfect crystal structure. This makes it very expensive to produce. The efficiency of such a cell is also very small, typically converting only 13-18 % of sunlight to electricity. However, low efficiency wouldn’t matter if huge arrays of cells could be produced cheaply. After all, nature’s solar cells, chloroplasts in plants are less than 1 % efficient.

Electrons jump from the valence bands into the conduction band, where
they are mobile.

Most solar powered devices rely on the same principle: a photon of sunlight boosts an electron in the material into a mobile state so that it can be used to generate electricity. The problem with this simple mechanism is that the electrons are negatively charged and will leave a positive charge. These opposite charges attract one another and therefore will tend to recombine, squandering the absorbed energy as heat or as re-emitted light.

Silicon solar cells use an electric field to push the negatively charged electrons and positive charges apart. While chloroplasts adopt a more subtle approach of separate charges by making a distinction between the units that generate the electron and those that transport it away.

Deciding to copy nature’s trick, Michael Gratzel and Brian O’Regan at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology began research and produced the Grätzel cell in 1991.

The Grätzel cell uses intensely colored organic dye molecules to capture light energy to inject an electron from the dye into a semiconductor such as titanium dioxide (TiO2). This remarkably efficient charge separation reaction initiates current flow and the output of electrical energy by the cell.

Schematic diagram showing how a Grätzel cell work. The dye molecules attached onto the semiconductor particles are sandwiched between two glass electrodes.

How does nanoscience help?

The ideal material used in the cell must have a high surface area for light absorption and charge separation. Nanoparticles, having a comparable surface area to volume ratio, provides for just that. Titanium dioxide nanoparticles are used to make nanoporous thin film supported upon a glass substrate. The material obtained has optical transparency, excellent stability and good electrical conductivity.

The economic well-being of the United States is dependent on the reliability, safety, and security of its physical infrastructure. The nation’s infrastructure is vast and affects the daily lives of virtually all Americans. In total, there are about 4 million miles of roads, 117,000 miles of rail, 600,000 bridges, 79,000 dams, 26,000 miles of commercially navigable waterways, 11,000 miles of transit lines, 500 train stations, 300 ports, 19,000 airports,5 55,000 community drinking water systems, and 30,000 wastewater treatment and collection facilities. Collectively, this infrastructure connects communities, facilitates trade, provides clean drinking water, and protects public health, among other things.

It is missing the natural gas, petroleum facilities and pipelines, the electricity generating facilities – hydroelectric, coal-fired and nuclear / atomic plants, and national parks, preserves and lands

CHIEF (Clearinghouse for Inventories and Emissions Factors) is the EPA site that includes the NEI (National Emissions Inventory) database. The NEI replaces AFS as the EPA’s repository of air emissions information for facilities, area, and mobile sources.

AFS (AIRS Facility Subsystem) formerly a subsystem of the Aerometric Information Retrieval System (AIRS) now operated and maintained by the EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA).

The following links are pointers to other hosts and locations on the Internet. This information is provided as a service. However, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency does not endorse, approve or otherwise support the non-EPA sites. Link to EPA’s External Link Disclaimer

Exchange Network for AQS data exchange (Node to node)

ECOS (Environmental Council of the States)

NACAA (National Association of Clean Air Agencies, formerly STAPPA/ALAPCO, State and Territorial Air Pollution Program Administrators / Association of Local Air Pollution Control Officials)

The Air Quality System (AQS) is EPA’s repository of ambient air quality data. AQS stores data from over 10,000 monitors, 5000 of which are currently active. As discussed in more detail elsewhere, State, Local and Tribal agencies collect the data and submit it to AQS on a periodic basis.

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Information on Unsafe Conditions at Specific Dams Located on Federal Lands
RCED-83-209 August 1, 1983
Full Report (PDF, 13 pages)

Summary

In response to a congressional request, GAO provided information on safety deficiencies identified at four dams on National Park Service and Forest Service lands, the status of agency actions to correct the identified safety deficiencies, and the reasons for failure to take corrective actions.

GAO found that, although Federal officials have been aware of the unsafe conditions at these dams for at least 4 years, only minimal corrective action has been taken to repair the dams. Interim actions have not been taken to diminish the dangers posed by the dams pending their repair. The Park Service has not taken this action because, while it agrees with the assessment of the danger the dams present, it does not believe that the conditions justify immediate repair.Furthermore, it does not believe that interim action, such as lowering the level of the lake, would diminish the dangers enough to justify reducing the benefits provided by the dams. The Forest Service has not required the private owner of one dam to take all of the recommended actions because the regional forester decided in 1980 that it would not be fair to hold owners responsible until Federal or State funding became available to prove the extent of the unsafe conditions. Forest Service officials agreed to review the adequacy of this decision after GAO brought it to their attention.